[Intro: solo grand piano, a faint room hum underneath] [Verse 1: female alto, close and steady] The couch went Saturday, the rug is rolled against the door There's a paler square of paint where the beach picture hung before Before we give the keys back, let me do it like I'm paid On every set, before we wrap, there's one last take we make [Verse 2: male tenor, answering] I know the drill, you taught me, plant your feet and breathe real slow Don't shift your weight, the boards will talk, keep your hands off the window You hold the little recorder up like a candle at a wake And the red light says it's listening, so neither of us breaks [Chorus: both voices, strings rising] Give me thirty seconds of room tone Let the refrigerator sing Give me thirty seconds of room tone So I can hear what we sound like when we don't say anything [Room tone: four bars of near silence, only a low hum and one radiator tick] [Verse 3: female alto, the strings come back in] Here's what the tape picked up while the two of us stood still The fridge humming in B flat, a bus braking on the hill The kid upstairs at the piano, missing the same note again And under that, two people breathing, both of us counting to ten [Verse 4: male tenor, rising] We had the tone in this room down cold the whole last year Every sentence had an edge on it, every silence was a spear But this quiet doesn't cut, there's nothing in it left to prove It just sounds like two good people standing in an empty room [Chorus: both voices, soft cinematic drums join] Give me thirty seconds of room tone Let the radiator ring Give me thirty seconds of room tone So I can hear what we sound like when we don't say anything [Bridge: female alto soaring over the full orchestra] In the edit, when you cut a line, you can't leave empty air You fill the gap with room tone, so nobody hears the tear So I'll lay this under every quiet scene I mix from here And every silence in a movie house will have us breathing there [Final Chorus: both voices in harmony, full orchestra, then down to piano] That was thirty seconds of room tone Leave your keys beside the sink That was thirty seconds of room tone It's the softest we've been all year, and it's louder than you think [Outro: piano alone, the hum fades out] [End]
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