[Intro: nylon guitar and grand piano] [Boarding: tenor, close and warm] Gate twenty two, eleven forty, the last flight out tonight I said a thing into the phone that a phone can never make right You hung up before I finished, and the silence had your face So I bought the middle seat, last row, the worst seat in the place [Chorus: strings rise under him] I took the red-eye So you'd see it in mine A sorry on the phone is cheap So I'm flying it all night Look at me, I didn't sleep That's what sorry looks like in the morning light [Cruising altitude: tenor, the strings settle in] Thirty four thousand feet, they dim the cabin blue Everybody's sleeping but a baby, me, and you Well, you're not here, you're in the window where my own face ought to be I wrote sorry on a napkin fourteen ways, and none of them sound like me [Turbulence: rolling toms enter, the strings churn] Seatbelt sign, the coffee jumps, the wing dips in the dark The lady by the window grabs my wrist and starts to pray I tell her I'm not scared of falling, I'm scared of where we park 'Cause at the bottom of this sky I have to stand in front of you and say it [Chorus] I took the red-eye So you'd see it in mine A sorry on the phone is cheap So I'm flying it all night Look at me, I didn't sleep That's what sorry looks like in the morning light [Descent: the orchestra swells, piano climbing] Six fifteen, the sun comes up and paints the wing in rose Then the harbor, then the bell tower, then your mother's street No flowers and no speech, just yesterday all over my clothes And the wheels touch down so softly that I finally feel my feet [String interlude: eight bars, sweeping] [Landing: full orchestra, the tenor soars] Seven sharp, your door, your hair still in a knot You open up and see the night I carried up the stairs I don't say one word I practiced, I just give you what I got A face that tells the truth before my mouth has said a prayer [Final Chorus: the biggest note] I took the red-eye Now you see it in mine A sorry on the phone is cheap This one cost me a whole night And I'd fly it every evening For the rest of my life [Outro: piano and nylon guitar] Look at me I didn't sleep [End]
