alone in the night

Hey there,

I don't know when you'll get this or how long this will take to reach you. To be honest, I don't even know where you are right now. People move so fast, they move around so much these days. I have a question: do you ever find yourself out late at night, listening to music, just walking aimlessly - no one to meet, no place to be? I suppose it's dangerous nowadays, to be alone like that.

When the sun sets, the city seems like a different place. Some nights are so still, so quiet, you become conscious of how much space there is, above you, beside you. You begin to understand on an emotional level all the implications of the word 'void'. You begin to feel extremely small. I think it's because we're used to being surrounded in public - we expect to have people constantly near and around us - so to be out at night is to find yourself alone when you're not expecting to be. Alone in the night, you are liable to find that your familiar places now house constellations of memories, a galaxy of silence, a new identity.

Where I'm from the nights are quiet. The streets are wide and empty. The stores have lights out front that glow like a tired person's smile. If it's April there's a bridge in the park with water flowing underneath, and a cool breeze will come from nowhere to kiss your cheek. The branches are bare and withered. They hang overhead like bony beggar's palms, reaching, not daring to touch, asking, not expecting to receive.

Are your nights like this too? Can you feel the April wind against your cheek? Can you hear the train carriages rattle like great metal skeletons in the distance?

I wrote this song thinking of you. Thinking maybe one night, you'll be out walking, listening to music - with no one to meet, nowhere to be - and if you are, maybe this song will come on. And when it does, maybe you'll feel the wind against your cheek and hear the trains in the distance and look up at the same night sky as me and see a lost universe hiding in small spaces. Maybe you'll find the cosmos in shop signs and streetlights, in the way the wind kisses your face, maybe on a page.

I hope you find this. I hope this helps you feel less alone in the night. Who knows - maybe someone else out there feels this way too.