[Verse 1] There were twelve clocks in a house of twenty rooms All telling different stories to the gloom Father laid their little hearts in rows Swore grief was just a gear that no one knows Mother drew Orion on the glass Said every burning thing is built to pass We slept beneath the pipes when winter came And gave each satellite a god’s name [Chorus] The house keeps time when nobody can In dust on the mantle, in marks on the jamb It counts every footstep, remembers each door And knows who came home And who doesn’t anymore The hands may stop The bells may lie But under the floorboards The lost hours hide The house keeps time The house keeps time [Verse 2] My sister beat me cleanly playing chess Then lied and said she’d let me win, I guess She called me “Your Majesty” when I Turned every small defeat into a trial My brother wore my footprints like a map He followed every road and doubled back We climbed the roof when everyone was still And named the lights that crossed above the hill [Chorus] The house kept time when we forgot to care With three shadows stretching from the chimney there It counted every summer we mistook for more And knew who would leave Before we reached the door The hands ran fast The bells rang slow We thought we had forever Because we didn’t know The house kept time The house kept time [Bridge] I made one promise underneath a failing light: “Stay where you are. I’ll come back tonight.” I knew the road I knew the hour I thought certainty and love Were the same kind of power But rain came down And the last train passed Every clock I trusted Was running fast When I arrived, you opened up the door Alive—but not the one Who’d waited there before [Verse 3] I went back years later with the key The rooms were smaller than they used to be The clocks still contradicted one another Like frightened children blaming one another I didn’t wind them Didn’t make them right I let them keep their separate versions of the night Then climbed the roof beneath the summer haze And found our satellites still knew their names [Final Chorus] The house keeps time, but time is not a judge The walls don’t grant forgiveness or hold a grudge They carry every echo, but they ask for nothing more Than someone to remember What the rooms were living for The hands may stop The bells may lie There’s still an open place Beneath the summer sky The house keeps time And I keep the key For everyone I was And everyone who waited there for me The house keeps time The house keeps time [Outro] Shoulder to shoulder Or years apart The clocks had the hours We had the stars
