The Porch Light's Off

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a screen door, a bowl brought inside, a click)
That's it. That's the signal.

[Verse 1]
There's a language on this street that everybody understands,
and it isn't written down and it doesn't need a hand
to explain it or enforce it — you just know it when you see:
when the porch light's off, the porch light's off, and that's the end of it.
No candy. No answer. No knock and no reply.
The oldest, kindest way of saying no that money ever bought.

[Chorus]
The porch light's off. The porch light's off.
Nobody has to say a word and nobody gets hurt.
The porch light's off, and honey, that's a mercy —
a no that doesn't need a name, a door that doesn't slam.
The porch light's off. The porch light's off.
Closed for the evening. Come back next year.

[Verse 2]
Now there's people who'll keep knocking 'cause they think the light's a glitch,
and there's people who won't knock at all 'cause they can read a switch,
and the difference between them is the difference in the world
between somebody listening and somebody who won't.
It's a light. It's a bulb. It's a nickel's worth of glass.
And it says the only word that no one ever wants to say out loud.

[Chorus]

[Bridge]
And it works both ways, that light. It works both ways, my friend.
Sometimes it's you inside there wanting all of it to end,
and you reach up and you click it and you sit back in the dark
and you're not being cruel, you're being clear, and that's the art.
Closed for the evening. Closed. And nobody's to blame.
The porch light's off. The kindest sentence in the language.

[Chorus]

[Outro]
(a bowl set on a counter, three candies left)
Three left.
Huh.
Three left.