[Intro: a single guitar note swelling out of feedback, held, trembling, like a light coming on in the dark; low hum of machines under concrete] [Verse 1] Half past midnight, the coffee's gone bitter Cold light humming on a concrete wall Kissed you goodnight in my uniform You said "bring milk," and that was all Then the big red letters lit up the ceiling Five white lines climbing over the sea And a hundred men turned around in their chairs And every one of them looked at me [Pre-Chorus] The book said pick up the phone The book said there's no time But I could hear you breathing Through the concrete and the night [Chorus] And you slept through the end of the world With your arm on my side of the bed You slept through the end of the world I did nothing, and the sun came up instead [Guitar Fill: short crying phrase answering the last line, wide vibrato] [Verse 2] In the morning they asked for my logbook And they found one column I'd left bare So they wrote me up for my paperwork No medal, no handshake, nothing there I came home at noon with a bottle of milk You said "you're late" and you kissed my face And I almost told you, I almost told you Then I put the milk in its place [Pre-Chorus] How do you tell a woman That she almost wasn't here So I told you about the weather And I kept it, year by year [Chorus] And you slept through the end of the world With your arm on my side of the bed You slept through the end of the world I did nothing, and the sun came up instead [Guitar Solo I – The Alarm: starts with one note bent into an air-raid siren, fuzz and feedback rising, military snare bursts like machine-gun fire, whammy dive bombs like falling missiles, screaming bends higher and higher, unbearable tension, chaos at full volume, then a sudden cut to total silence] [Bridge – voice and piano only, slowly building back to full power] They found out a year after the funeral Strangers came to shake my hand So I'm telling you now on the bench by your stone Like you could understand That night I counted your breathing Like you were lying next to me Every breath said wait, every breath said wait So I waited, and I let you sleep [Final Chorus – full band and strings, vocal at the top of his range] And you sleep through the end of the world With the birches over your bed You sleep through the end of my world I do nothing, and the sun comes up instead [Guitar Solo II – The Dawn: slow, aching, melodic, the guitar singing like a human voice, long sustained notes, crying vibrato, rising one last time to a soaring peak, then falling gently, resolving, dying away to a single held note] [Outro – almost silence, the held note fading, voice soft and close] I brought the milk [End]
