01-b. Four Litres of Midnight

[Intro - rain, glass piano, no vocals] [Verse 1] I recorded rain like a witness on the sill, Then counted my pulse in the GP fluorescent still. Lithium ghosts in the blood-test chair, A lawsuit website breathing in the static air. Friday had a bottle-black halo on the desk, Saturday brought old friends back from the wreck, Sunday typed The Murder like a machine in prayer, Then a brotherly door closed with a bruise in the stair. [Pre-Chorus] Four litres of midnight fizzing in my hand, Fifteen minutes of focus, then the desert again. The television waits with its American eyes, But memory tastes better when somebody replies. [Explosive Chorus] Four litres of midnight, Lord, what have I become? A rain-fed radio heart beating under neon gum. I do not want a life that vanishes unseen, So I write myself in gold on the dark green screen. Four litres of midnight, cola-black control, Tiny bright bubbles holding up my soul. [Verse 2] Drama class, one hour and a half of borrowed flame, Cake-shop meetings where old voices learnt my name. Vegetarian curry puffs for the fellowship room, Chocolate cake and pizza cutting sweetness through the gloom. A cleaner moved the dust like a secular hymn, A neighbour asked for sugar, so the world got thin; Not thin like nothing, thin like grace, A teaspoon of kindness in a collapsing place. [Quirky Refrain] One game of gridiron, one useless cameraman, One burger at the pub, one almost-better plan. If company is oxygen, I ration what I own, And drink the black moon cold because I cannot watch alone. Lex: I keep the small things. Choir: small things do not break. [Verse 3 - inventory of survival] The lawsuit page blinked like a lighthouse for paperwork ships, The GP tape left a pale little orbit on my wrist. I had enough ordinary errands to impersonate a life, Yet every ordinary errand had a metaphysical knife. The rain said remember, the cola said stay, The keyboard said build one more usable day. If the world is a room where nobody stays long, Then the diary becomes the spine of the song. [Lift - quirky choir] Count the litres, count the crumbs, Count the friends who almost come. Count the jokes, count the ache, Count the soul that will not break. [Final Chorus - sing once] Four litres of midnight, Lord, what have I become? A rain-fed radio heart beating under neon gum. If no one sits beside me when the long programmes roll, I will still keep the record; I will still guard the soul. [Outro - 4 bars, no vocals] [END PART 1] [Verse 3] The radio has vibes but the words are a risk, So I harvest the colour and leave the lyric mist. ADD birds scatter where attention should land, Still the keyboard obeys the command of my hand. Twelve diary pages for a fortnight of smoke, A kingdom of small errands and the jokes I never spoke. I am bored but not empty, alone but not erased, A gold thread stitched through an ordinary place. [Pre-Chorus - rising] Do not make me heroic, make me accurate and awake; Let the kick drum hit the table where the silent cups shake. Let the backing choir shimmer like a church hall floor, Then stop when the written night has no more. [Chorus - punchy, catchy] Four litres of midnight, fizzing like a crown, I keep myself from disappearing when the room comes down. Four litres of midnight, witness in the glass, The smallest act of order can outlive the past. [Surreal Middle Eight] A cola moon swims in a saucepan sky, Curry-puff comets through the fellowship fly. A failed camera kneels to a bus-stop saint, And the rain writes footnotes in electric paint. I laugh at the circus, I grieve in the chair, I ask God to count what nobody sees there. [Final Chorus - all voices, repeat once only] Four litres of midnight, Lord, I am still here, A diary with drums and a bottle-dark spear. If focus is borrowed and company rare, Let discipline become a kind of prayer. [Verse 4 - strange ordinary gospel] I saw a cake become a planet, I saw Wi-Fi become a bridge, I saw one hour with old friends stand bravely on a ridge. The script called The Murder kept typing through the wall, As if art were a window when no one came to call. No grand revelation, just a bottle and a page, A man conducting weather in a rented private stage. [Mini-Chorus - repeat once] Do not let the small things vanish, Do not let the small things lie; A teaspoon of sugar can argue with the sky. [Moral Refrain] Small kindness is not small when the soul is running thin; Write the day honestly, then let the morning in. [Outro - brief instrumental, no vocals] [END SONG]