[MALE SPOKEN INTRO — dry editorial voice over soft piano and room noise] [SPOKEN] From The Apocryphal Songbook. [SPOKEN] Recovered from a Chilhãd that never was. [SPOKEN] This song does not belong to canon. [SPOKEN] It comes from the so-called Sorcerium Years — [SPOKEN] an era imagined, not lived. [SPOKEN] Not Andros. Not the White City. [SPOKEN] A western port town. [SPOKEN] Dockhands, cooks, a Plains fiddler, [SPOKEN] a drummer from a Dwarven hold. [SPOKEN] The singer wears tideglass. [SPOKEN] No record confirms the stone. [SPOKEN] I have left it in. [SPOKEN] A port town deserves [SPOKEN] what the sea named for itself. [SPOKEN] — J. A. Slaughter ⸻ Tideglass Charm [INTRO — band warms up, fiddle lick, brushed drums, piano vamp] [Female Lead, spoken-sung] Alright, boys— one more before the tide turns. ⸻ [VERSE 1 — brassy, lively] Well, the dockhands dance and the cooks are off shift the Plains-born fiddler’s got a tune to make you lift There’s a hold-drummer pounding where the deep roads sleep and the night ain’t letting one working soul sleep ⸻ [REFRAIN — room joins] No sleep, no sleep not tonight, not yet pour one more sorrow and we’ll dance off the debt ⸻ [VERSE 2 — playful, sharper] Now my landlord wants silver and my mother wants me home and the boy who broke my heart writes letters I don’t open But the bandleader nodded and the bass took breath and trouble won’t find me till it drinks itself to death ⸻ [CHORUS — hot jazz lift, room claps] Tideglass charm tideglass charm sea-stone shining on my arm Low tide luck high tide harm kiss me quick by my tideglass charm ⸻ [BRIDGE — languages rising, crowd energy] The baker’s wife is dancing with the blacksmith’s son the sailor spends wages he ain’t even won Plains girl says “aelithir” to a boy she just met and a dwarf at the bar cries “varrun, no regret!” ⸻ [CHORUS — bigger, trumpet answers] Tideglass charm tideglass charm sea-stone shining on my arm Low tide luck high tide harm kiss me quick by my tideglass charm ⸻ [VERSE 3 — faster, unrepentant] So the fiddler’s gonna fiddle and the dealer’s gonna deal and the cook’ll burn the kitchen if she likes the way I feel I got tideglass at my throat from a low-tide afternoon and a room full of people who ain’t waiting for the moon ⸻ [BREAKDOWN — bass, claps, spoken over vamp] Dockhands! Dealers! Cooks and fools! Who built this room? [Room Shout] We did! ⸻ [FINAL CHORUS — full band, rowdy and bright] Tideglass charm tideglass charm sea-stone shining on my arm Low tide luck high tide harm kiss me quick by my tideglass charm Tideglass charm tideglass charm a stone the sea forgot Pour another, boys— we’re alive whether canon likes it or not ⸻ [OUTRO — band vamp, half-spoken, half-sung] Tideglass charm tideglass charm The dockhands and the dealers the cooks and the fools We’re the ones who built this room We’re the ones who built this room.
