[Intro: sweeping strings like opening titles] [Verse] Same café, the corner chair, the paper folded into three, a red carnation in my lapel for someone meant to look for me. Sugar in a black espresso, one cube, it's never two, the waiter knows not to ask me what I'm waiting for. Or who. [Chorus: brass answers] Carnation, carnation, the flower and the sign, I wear it every Tuesday, still red, still on time. [Verse] Trams go by like slow ideas, a woman reads the menu twice, my training says: don't look, don't move, my heart says: look. It isn't wise. She orders tea and pays in coins, she doesn't wear a single flower, she leaves, and I unfold the paper and read the same page for an hour. [Chorus: brass answers] Carnation, carnation, the flower and the sign, I wear it every Tuesday, still red, still on time. [Instrumental: trombone solo over the swung groove] [Bridge: strings swell, voice almost a whisper] They closed the file in eighty-nine, the wall came down, the game was done, but nobody told the red carnation, nobody told the only one. [Chorus: full band] Carnation, carnation, the flower and the sign, I wear it every Tuesday, still red, still on time. [Outro: strings fade, a wink] Same café. Same chair. Tuesday. [Fade Out] [End]
