COMMON TIME

Four chairs around the console six coffees on the floor Nova wanted everything louder Ash wanted one thing more Lyra kept time on the tabletop Lucien paced behind the glass Vanta moved the running order before we'd finished what we had And me I moved the chorus sixteen bars so nobody had to lose Dropped the key a whole step lower changed the kick beneath the groove Nobody called it diplomacy Nobody called it design We just somehow hit the downbeat at approximately the same time Not perfect Not clean But somewhere between what you wanted and what I mean We found common time For a minute we were right Four beats holding six different kinds of night Common time No one had to disappear You brought what you couldn't carry I made a place for it here Common time Common time Funny how a room can feel like home for four beats at a time Four beats at a time I knew when Ash was finished before he packed the case Knew when Nova needed silence from the way she touched her face Knew when Lyra hated counting because she'd speed the fill instead Knew when Lucien had a verse coming by the circles that he paced Vanta liked the red lights brighter Kade, can you make this hit Everybody had a language Everybody had a limit So I learned to leave the gaps in learned when not to add a sound Learned sometimes the strongest arrangement is convincing people to come down And yeah I liked being the answer liked hearing Kade will know There are worse ways to feel needed than becoming where they go Not perfect Not clean Somewhere between what you feared and what you'd dreamed We found common time For a minute we were right Four beats holding six different kinds of night Common time No one had to disappear You brought what you couldn't carry I made a place for it here Common time Common time Funny how a room can feel like home for four beats at a time Found an old photograph later everybody in one frame Half of us were looking elsewhere somebody misspelled my name I remembered less about the picture than the session after that How we fought about a bridge for hours then played it once and laughed That's the part nobody archives not the songs, not who was right Just the stupid little miracle of everybody there that night But there is one thing I don't say much Maybe because I don't know Did you love me for the person or because I made things go That's unfair I know You were my friends You are my friends But when you're always the one holding the balance sometimes you wonder who notices when your hands get tired Anyway One, two, three, four We found common time Even when we weren't alright Four beats holding six impossible kinds of life Common time Nobody had to disappear You brought what you couldn't carry We made a place for it here Common time Common time Maybe home was never permanent Maybe that was fine Common time Common time We were never built forever But damn we kept good time One Two Three Four