Frisson

Lyrics

[Intro]
(strings — building a chord that doesn't resolve yet, holding, holding)
(the tension is the point — the frisson lives in the almost)
(then: the chord resolves — and the harp arrives on the resolution like rain on a window you'd forgotten was open)

[Verse 1]
The French called it frisson
Which means the shiver
But the shiver isn't cold
The shiver is the skin
Applauding something
That the mind hasn't named yet

The arm hair rises
Like a field of wheat
Convinced by a wind
That hasn't arrived
But sent a letter ahead
And the letter
Was a chord
And the chord
Contained a room
You lived in once
But couldn't find on a map
Until the music
Drew it for you

[Pre-Chorus]
(strings tightening again, the next wave building)
And the strange part —
The beautiful clockwork of it —
The reward doesn't come
When the chord arrives
The reward comes just before
In the almost
In the leaning-toward
The quarter-second
When the body knows
What's coming
And the knowing
Is better than the getting
Every time

[Chorus]
(the resolution — full strings, harp, piano, the frisson-inducing moment)
Frisson, frisson
The skin casting a vote
The mind hasn't called
Frisson, frisson
A chord that opens a hall
You didn't know you'd built
From the collected residue
Of every time
A song found the lock
Your collarbone had been keeping
For exactly this

[Verse 2]
(stripped — just voice and piano, intimate, post-frisson)
I felt it once on the Pont Neuf
A busker playing something
On a dented trumpet
That had the shape of a question
My grandmother might have asked
If she'd had a trumpet
Instead of a kitchen
And the question
Went up my arms
Like a census of small fires
Each one confirming:
Yes
I am still capable
Of being found
By a sound
I didn't send for

[Chorus]
Frisson, frisson
The skin casting a vote
The mind hasn't called
Frisson, frisson
A chord that opens a hall
You didn't know you'd built

[Bridge]
(strings building one more time — the biggest swell, designed to actually trigger it)
The reason it works
Is that the body remembers
What the mind is still translating

The chord is a key
But the door it opens
Isn't in front of you
It's behind you
It's the door you came through
When you were too young
To know you were entering
And the entering
Was the first music
And the music
Was someone's voice
And the voice
Was not singing
It was just speaking
And the speaking
Was enough

(the strings resolve — hold — the biggest, warmest chord)

And the arm hair knows this
Before you do
And the knowing
Is the frisson

[Outro]
(the resolution sustains — then slowly fades, the goosebumps settling)
Frisson
(softly, the skin still raised)
The almost
The leaning-toward
The door behind you
Opening
(harp — one note, the last shiver, then warmth)