You crank the handle till your knuckles white
The mainspring groans beneath the pale moonlight
Saxophone shades haunt the cracked cellulose
But needles skip on grooves that time suppressed
Oh basement beacon wound too tight too long
Your song once swung where dancers belonged
Now rust claims the gears that kept the tempo true
A lighthouse lens gone dim in Chicago blue
You remember how the drummer brushed the wire
Brushes singing like a rising tide and fire
The bassist bowed deep notes like anchor chain
Now only rats dance through the dust and rain
Oh basement beacon wound too tight too long
Your song once swung where dancers belonged
Now rust claims the gears that kept the tempo true
A lighthouse lens gone dim in Chicago blue
The club above still shakes with Friday night
But downstairs you're a relic out of sight
Your spring runs down the music starts to slow
Like lantern light in storms of long ago
Oh basement beacon wound too tight too long
Your song once swung where dancers belonged
Now rust claims the gears that kept the tempo true
A lighthouse lens gone dim in Chicago blue
The glockenspiel once chimed like harbor bell
Now silence rings where melodies would dwell
Double bass strings hang slack like useless rope
No winding key can give this machine hope
You tended lamps on rocky shores for years
Now tend this box that nobody else hears
The mechanism fights the creeping rust
But entropy wins turns music to dust
One final crank the spring catches and turns
A scratchy melody the basement learns
Coleman Hawkins breathes from decades past
But the winding stops the die is cast
Oh basement beacon wound too tight too long
Your song once swung where dancers belonged
Now rust claims the gears that kept the tempo true
A lighthouse lens gone dim in Chicago blue
Let the spring run down
Darkness keeps the sound
