[Verse 1]
Your coat hung on the chair, the rim of your coffee cup—
Sleeve brushed my wrist under the studio light, it sped me up.
You hum low like a record skipping soft across the groove,
A small, honest scar behind your ear that I learn to soothe.
(verse vocal low, intimate — keep breathy tone, mark small melismas on "cup" and "soothe")
[Pre-Chorus]
Moonlight naps on the windowsill; the city sighs in time.
I count the tiny reasons—paper boats on the tide of your mind.
We swing slow, two steps of hush, then an honest laugh that breaks the dark.
(leave a half-beat pocket after "hush" for rubato)
[Chorus]
You're my midnight lullaby.
You're my midnight lullaby — you keep me wide awake.
Short, soft, and dangerous; a tune I can’t unmake.
(Chorus hook: concise, repeatable. Place a 3-note melisma on the final "lullaby" for lift)
[Verse 2]
In the corner bar the upright walks, your thumb finds the off-beat pulse,
A glass, a cigarette of light (the word "light" held)—your laugh, a saxophone impulse.
You fold the world into your hands like maps I’ve never read,
You trace small constellations on my palm and press them into bed.
(verse 2: move up a third in register on lines 3–4; allow a breathy, higher note on "read")
[Pre-Chorus B]
The night trades stories with our shadows on the floor,
I learn the ways you say my name like proofs I can’t ignore.
We trade the quiet for a chorus that keeps pulling us apart,
Then stitch it up with soft apologies and a stubborn heart.
(hold a suspended chord on "apart" for one bar)
[Chorus — Variation]
You're my midnight lullaby.
You're my midnight lullaby — soft and dangerous and real.
I used to fear the silence, now I swear by how you feel.
(chorus repeat with new detail; sing straighter, add a gentle synth pad under the second line)
[Instrumental Vamp — 2 bars]
[Muted trumpet/sax solo — 2-bar vamp; let the trumpet bloom, then answer with a microtonal oud turn]
(allow space: drummer brushes whisper, upright bass walking; suggest small maqam-inflected phrase in the last half-bar)
[Scat / Interlude]
(Scat: ah-doo-ba / ba-doo-wah — ad lib; give room for a 4-bar improvised vocal run, then resolve)
[Bridge]
Let me tell you how the small things made the knot
—the rim of your coffee cup, the way you leave the light half-hot.
I hold the parts of you that rattle like a bottle on a ledge,
I promise to be steady as the keys beneath your trembling edge.
(bridge: bring voice to upper register for the last two lines; mark long melisma on "edge")
[Chorus — Final, Evolving]
You're my midnight lullaby.
You're my midnight lullaby — and now I know the score.
We’ve walked through tiny storms and found a doorway to the shore.
(chorus final: lift harmony on the last repeat; add small gospel-ish spread on the last "lullaby")
[Outro]
Stay with me where the piano hums and city lights baptize,
We’ll keep this little song alive, two souls in velvet skies.
You're my midnight lullaby — keep me wide, keep me awake.
(soft fade: end on an Oud /琴
