[Verse 1: Operatic tenor male lead, big and open over the huge live drums] Nineteen hundred feet of steel and the ladder's cold as stone Harness on my hip and a lamp inside my coat Every hundred feet I clip and every hundred feet I pray And the town below is shrinking to a scatter of gray Wind is pulling at my jacket like it wants me for its own And the handheld on my shoulder hisses static all alone I'm the only living thing for a mile in the air Going up to fix a light that nobody knows is there [Chorus: Operatic tenor male lead] Warning light, warning light, red against the black Made to tell the planes to turn around and go back But for a man on the highway a long way from home That red little light says you're not alone [Verse 2: Operatic tenor male lead, the wall of guitars rising behind him] Then a voice comes on the handheld, rough and tired and slow Says hey, whoever's on the tower, there's a thing you ought to know I drive the night route from the coast with a load of frozen peas And that red light is how I know I'm forty miles from my kids Three nights it's been dark and I keep missing my turn I'm a grown man crying at a dashboard, watching nothing burn So I tell him, hang on, brother, I'm about a hundred from the top Keep your eyes on the black and I'll tell you where to stop [Chorus: Operatic tenor male lead] Warning light, warning light, red against the black Made to tell the planes to turn around and go back But for a man on the highway a long way from home That red little light says you're not alone [Bridge: Operatic tenor male lead, bulb ignition, he twists the new lamp in and the band and his top note come on together] Quarter turn and quarter turn and the socket catches hold And the red comes up around me like a fire in the cold Then the radio goes crazy, there it is, there it is And a horn on the highway, and I know that horn is his [Verse 3: Operatic tenor male lead, full power, every line wide open] Took me three hours down the ladder with my fingers gone to wood Never saw him, never will, but the night was good Every time I'm on a tower now I think about the peas And a kid in a window waiting with a light in the trees [Final Chorus: Operatic tenor male lead] Warning light, warning light, red against the black Made to tell the planes to turn around and go back But for a man on the highway a long way from home That red little light says you're not alone [End]
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