Piano Man

He sits with an upright posture And he loosens his fingers He tells us an origin story So that his hands may compute

The story is corny and too familiar And he realises its wearisomeness He rushes through it and mocks it Till our laughter is of our interest

He has our attention for a bit But our sorrows are drenched in wine We have no sympathy for him and rightly so This is a place of phony joy

Then he faces forward as our noises end And his concentration is apparent His smile dies and our laughs too As his eyes close for the opening chord

We listen for a while before muttering amongst ourselves But he doesn't hesitate to strike the keys As if to say, 'I tell my piano the things I used to tell you'

His emotion fills the room Drying the wine and wetting souls His story is no longer tiresome He tells it passionately and truthfully

'He never told her these things', we say, 'How incredibly unfortunate!' He saddens our atmosphere With the words she'll never know

The piano man plays his story With winey fingers drenched in sorrow Before he stops we realise that his story Is one of ours as well