[Intro: solo fingerpicked acoustic guitar, bass drone, no drums] [Verse 1: acoustic, close male vocal, sparse hand percussion] The frost came down on Dublin in the winter of the year, The river stopped its running and the ground went hard as iron. We took the room behind the Eagle where the candles kept us warm, Santry in his gold braid and St Leger in his doubt, And a boy not five and twenty with his father's money on him, And we heard the first knock. [Verse 2: add 12-string and harpsichord, distant female harmonies] He came in from the weather with no snow upon his coat, He asked us for a hand of cards and we were glad to deal. He had manners like a gentleman and money like a lord, He never asked our names of us and we never asked for his. He took the empty chair we always left there for a joke, And we heard the second knock. [Bridge: eerie analogue ambience, organ swell, drums enter half time] The young one dropped a guinea and went down beneath the baize, And he was down there a long while and he came up white as salt. There's no boots under the table, was the whole of what he said. And the candle flames leaned inward though the door was shut and barred, And the stranger set his cards down and began to speak in tongues, And we heard the third knock. [Verse 3: full band, chiming electric guitars, melodic bass, controlled fuzz] They came up through the floorboards like the breath comes off a lake, Nine women made of winter with their hair undone and streaming. Santry laughed and raised his glass, God help him, he was glad, Till one of them turned round to us with nothing in her face. The boy ran for the doorway but the door had frozen shut, And we heard the fourth knock. [Instrumental: soaring electric guitar over full drums, harpsichord underneath] [Verse 4: huge live drums, layered vocals, full weight] I will not tell you what he was. I have not said it once. There is no word for it in English and the word I have is his. The house went up before the dawn and took the street entire, And not a man of that good company was ever seen again But me, who kept my mouth shut and who ran when the boy ran, And I heard the last knock. [Outro: guitars fall away, back to solo acoustic and drone] There was a woman in the ashes when the snow began again, She walked across the burning ground and took no mark upon her. She had eyes the colour of the storm and she was in no hurry, And a grey crow came down to her and the two of them looked back. She never came for us that night. She came for what we called. And I hear it still.
