[Intro: 4 bars, warm acoustic guitar arpeggio, soft piano, gentle live-drum groove, shimmering electric guitar] [Verse 1: intimate, warm, melodic] April or May of sixty-eight, two months old and Moscow-bound, a long way from Magadan, the plane kept stopping, touching down. My parents still remember every stop — apparently I made those landings memorable. [Pre-Chorus: gentle lift, harmony opening] Some people grow roots right where they are. Leave me home too long, I start to sour. [Chorus: warm, blooming, wider harmonies] I love coming home. I just can't stay there long. The porcelain heart can do the staying, sitting there while I'm gone. Don't ask me where I live. Ask me where I am. Don't ask me where I live. Ask me where I am. [Verse 2: flowing, nostalgic, lightly playful] Skipped my breakfast, saved my kopecks for German model planes. Piece by piece, I'd sit and glue them, then save up and start again. I thought I'd end up in a cockpit, a dream they gave us without our knowing. I never became a pilot, but I kept the part about going. [Pre-Chorus: gentle lift, harmony opening] Some people grow roots right where they are. Leave me home too long, I start to sour. [Chorus: warm, blooming, wider harmonies] I love coming home. I just can't stay there long. The porcelain heart can do the staying, sitting there while I'm gone. Don't ask me where I live. Ask me where I am. Don't ask me where I live. Ask me where I am. [Verse 3: warm forward motion, subtle strings entering] Ten years ago, someone read my BaZi. "Traveling Horse," they said. I laughed — sounded less like freedom, more like "put him to work instead." But time kept making it funnier: thirty-eight trips by week thirty-nine, cities changing before I learn them, and the next one's already in line. [Bridge: spacious, weightless, drums soften, piano and strings breathe] Tired? Sure — airports do that. It builds before you even know. But leave me sitting still too long and that's a different kind of low. I love hotel rooms. I love a changing view. A different city outside the window, somewhere I haven't gotten used to. [Final Chorus: richest and warmest, layered harmonies, expansive but restrained] I love coming home. I just can't stay there long. The porcelain heart can do the staying, sitting there while I'm gone. Don't ask me where I live. Ask me where I am. Don't ask me where I live. Ask me where I am. Home is where I am. [Outro: drums fade away, acoustic guitar and piano, intimate] Two months old, Magadan to Moscow. All these years later, I still don't love the ground.
