[Intro] [Fingerpicked acoustic guitar alone, tape hiss, slow 6/8 sway, four bars, no vocals] [Verse 1] [Soft, close, unhurried] Found you in the shallows where the sandbar bends, purple as a bruise before the bruise sets in. Held you up still dripping in the August light, swore I'd never owned a color so alive. Put you in my pocket with my keys and change. That's how all the bright things get brought home. [Chorus] [Gentle lift, double-tracked harmony, still quiet] You were gorgeous where I found you. I should have left you in the tide. Everything's a jewel underwater. Everything is chalk when it dries. I keep holding you up to the window like the sun still owes me one. But the color never lived in you. It lived in where you're from. [Verse 2] [Brushed drums enter, soft bass, a half-step warmer] Drove you home on Labor Day, salt still in your hair, gave you half a dresser and a key. You used to taste like sunscreen and a dare. Now you're asking where I keep the coffee filters. And it isn't that you faded. It's that I can see you now. Nothing in my house reflects you like the water did. [Chorus] [Same restraint, harmonies slightly wider] You were gorgeous where I found you. I should have left you in the tide. Everything's a jewel underwater. Everything is chalk when it dries. I keep holding you up to the window like the sun still owes me one. But the color never lived in you. It lived in where you're from. [Bridge] [Strip to guitar and one voice, mellotron swell underneath, near spoken] There's a jar up on my windowsill, a decade deep in grey. Every one was once the brightest thing in four feet of July. And I used to blame the leaving. It was never the leaving. It's the keeping. [Final Chorus] [Drums return softly, resigned, tender] You were gorgeous where I found you. I should have left you in the tide. Everything's a jewel underwater. Everything is chalk when it dries. I could carry you back down some morning, let the shallows have you back. But I won't, and we both know it. I'll just hold you to the light. [Outro] [Music thins to fingerpicking and hiss] [Spoken, dry, very close to the mic] "The tide brings them in. I do the rest." [Guitar slows, fade out...] [End]
