Tip of the Tongue

Lyrics

[Intro]
(piano — a phrase that starts confidently then stops mid-note, as if it forgot where it was going)
(it tries again — gets further — stops again)
(clarinet enters, also hesitating, searching for the melody)
(the song itself is experiencing the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon)

[Verse 1]
Tôi biết từ đó — I know the word
It starts with — no
It starts with the feeling of starting
With a sound that has the shape of a door handle
That your hand has closed around
In the dark
And you know the door is there
And you know the handle is brass
And you can feel the temperature of the answer
But the door
Will not

Cái từ đó ở ngay đây — the word is right here
On the tip of my tongue
Which in French is sur le bout de la langue
Which in Vietnamese is ở đầu lưỡi
And the tongue in all three languages
Is reaching
Like a woman on a balcony
Reaching for a hat
That the wind has made
Its own

[Pre-Chorus]
(clarinet finds a phrase — then loses it again)
The temporal lobe is buffering
The way a café waiter buffers
When you order something
That he definitely knows how to make
But the name has slipped
Behind the espresso machine
And he's standing there
With the posture of someone
Whose competence is being quietly audited
By a cup

[Chorus]
(building — but the build keeps pausing, reaching, almost arriving)
Bout de la langue, bout de la langue
Ở đầu lưỡi — right there on the tip
Bout de la langue, bout de la langue
The retrieval system's fingers slip
I can feel the word's weight
I can feel its number of syllables
I know it rhymes with something
That tastes like the feeling of an almost-kept promise
And the promise had — had —

(the music stops — one beat of total silence)

I've lost it again

[Verse 2]
(just voice and hesitant piano, intimate, frustrated, half-laughing)
The blocking effect — that's the clinical name
Another word sits in the target's chair
Like a squatter with excellent posture
And refuses to leave and the real word
Is standing outside in the rain
Perfectly dressed
Holding the reservation
That says eight o'clock, table for one
And the maître d' is apologetic
But the chair is taken

Tôi tìm trong tiếng Việt — I search in Vietnamese
Và nó không có ở đó
And it's not there either
I search in French — pas là non plus
Three languages and not one of them
Will give me back the word
That I lent them
On a Tuesday
When I was too trusting
And the word was too beautiful
To be kept in just one mouth

[Pre-Chorus]
(clarinet tries the phrase again — gets closer — almost — )
The phonological loop is spinning
Like a revolving door
That keeps showing you the street
You're trying to reach
Through the glass
And the glass is your own skull
And the street is the word
And the word is waving at you
From across a distance
That has the exact measurements
Of a cruelty designed by someone
Who loved you

[Chorus]
(fuller — the reaching more urgent now, the almost-arrival more aching)
Bout de la langue, bout de la langue
Ở đầu lưỡi — right there on the tip
Bout de la langue, bout de la langue
The retrieval system's fingers slip
I can feel the word's weight
I can feel its number of syllables
I know it rhymes with something
That tastes like the feeling of an almost-kept promise
And the promise had — had —

(silence again — but shorter this time, the song learning to tolerate the gap)

Almost

[Bridge]
(everything drops to just voice — no instruments, just her and the search)
Mẹ ơi — mother
What was the word you used
When I was small
For the feeling of the rain stopping
And the air afterwards
Being a different country
Than the air before

(pause)

It wasn't mưa — that's just rain
It wasn't tạnh — that's just stopping
It was something else
A word that lived in the space
Between the rain and the not-rain
A word that smelled like the sound
Of a page being turned
In a room where the reading
Has become the weather

(piano returns — single notes, tentative)

And I've been looking for it
Since I landed in Paris
Since I left the language
That held it
The way you leave a house
And realize the keys
Are still on the table
Inside the locked room
And the room is the word
And the word is the key
And the key is on the tip
Of a tongue
That is standing in the rain
In Paris
Reaching

(long pause)

(clarinet — very quietly — plays the phrase it's been searching for the entire song)
(it found it)
(but the word itself is never spoken)

(strings enter — warm, resolved, the search settling into acceptance)

Có lẽ một số từ — perhaps some words
Are not meant to be found again
Perhaps they exist
Only in the looking
And the looking is the word
And the word was always
The search itself

(full strings — gentle, warm, the frustration dissolved into something tender)

[Outro]
(the piano plays confidently now — the hesitation gone, though the word never arrived)
Bout de la langue
(softly, smiling at the absurdity)
Ở đầu lưỡi
Trên đầu lưỡi
On the tip
On the very tip
(the clarinet plays its found phrase one more time — complete, clear, unnamed)
Tôi nhớ cảm giác đó — I remember the feeling of it
And the feeling is enough
(piano and clarinet fade together — in agreement, in the space where the word used to be)
(silence — but a warm silence, the silence of something accepted)