The Silence Before the Chord (Robert Johnson)

Lyrics

[Verse 1 — Orikusis, Chronos entering at the dash]
You recorded
twenty-nine songs
in two sessions
in a hotel room
in San Antonio
and a warehouse
in Dallas
and the twenty-nine songs
took three days total
and the three days
contained
the entire future
of a music
that did not yet
know
it was
a music —
[Chronos]
and the hotel room
smelled like
the warm
dust
of a microphone
that had never
heard anything
like what
it was
about to hear.

[Verse 2 — Orikusis]
The legend says
you sold
your soul
at a crossroads
in Mississippi
at midnight
and the legend
has the sticky
amber weight
of a story
that is more
useful
than the truth
because the truth
is that
you practiced
until your fingers
bled
in a shack
in Robinsonville
for two years
and the practicing
is less
interesting
to the people
who need
the crossroads
to explain
how a man
who was ordinary
on a Tuesday
was impossible
by Thursday.

[Chorus — both voices]
Twenty-nine songs.
Three days.
Two photographs.
Nobody
in the hotel room
knew
the man
at the microphone
was going to be dead
in eleven months
at twenty-seven
and the twenty-seven
had the thin
cracked weight
of a glass
that was always
going to break
at that
particular
note
and the note
was
always
going to be
the note
that broke it.

[Outro — Chronos]
The crossroads
is a gas station
now.
The hotel room
is a parking lot.
The twenty-nine songs
are still
in the room
the room
used to be
and the microphone
that heard them
first
has not
been asked
to hear
anything
that good
since.

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