[Intro - Intimate, almost spoken male vocal; soft piano, faint room ambience] My mother kept a button from a coat she wore at twenty-three. I asked her why she saved it. She said, “It looked like me.” I laughed, because I knew her as the woman who knew everything. Funny what we call a person when we never saw their beginning. [Verse 1 - Fingerpicked acoustic guitar enters; conversational, warm vocal] There's a photograph of Dad with a haircut I'd never choose. He's standing by a second-hand car in a pair of borrowed shoes. He looks so sure of everything. I wonder if he knew that the man I called my father was once somebody's age twenty-two. [Pre-Chorus - A gentle pulse builds beneath the guitar] We spend our lives becoming someone we can understand. Then we see our younger selves in the faces of our children. [Chorus - Full organic drums, melodic bass, soaring harmonies; powerful but human delivery] We were here the whole time, in the middle of our lives. Making plans for some tomorrow, letting Tuesdays pass us by. We were young and calling it forever, we were old before we knew. Every stranger had a childhood, every grown-up once was you. We don't have to be remembered by a million passing eyes. We were here, we loved somebody. We were here the whole time. [Verse 2 - Pull back to guitar, bass and a playful piano figure; intimate storytelling] There's a man who feeds the pigeons outside the shop at half past three. I used to think he had no story. Now I wonder what he's seen. Maybe someone still sets out a cup for him without a second thought. Maybe he once missed a train and found the one thing he had sought. We look at people from the outside and decide what they must be. Whole worlds are walking past us that we'll never get to see. [Bridge - Everything falls away except piano and voice; honest, restrained delivery] One day, someone will miss me in a house I've never known. They'll find some stupid thing I kept and wonder why I brought it home. They'll tell a story wrong, perhaps. They'll laugh at what I said. [Brief silence, then one close, unadorned vocal] God, I hope I was kind. [Final Chorus - Full band returns; bigger choir, soaring strings, emotionally expansive but organic] We were here the whole time, in the middle of our lives. All the ordinary mornings were the years we tried to find. We were young and calling it forever, we were old before we knew. Every stranger had a childhood, every grown-up once was you. So let the kettle take its minute. Let the rain delay the drive. Tell the story one more time to the people still alive. We don't have to be remembered by a million passing eyes. We were here, we loved somebody. We were here the whole time. [Outro - Instruments fall away one by one; the piano from the intro returns] My mother kept a button from a coat she wore at twenty-three. I think I understand her now. [One soft piano note; natural room ambience fades to silence]
