Story Behind The Song

Written about NYC in late fall/early winter (around Black Friday), about a couple driving out of the city past protesters. About a difficult relationship- between the two people in the car, and about the world outside.

Song Description

A midtempo folk rock song with soaring melody about the changing of the seasons- Written about NYC in late fall/early winter (around Black Friday), about a couple driving out of the city past protesters. About a difficult relationship- between the two people in the car, and about the world outside.

Lyrics

Leave a Light On
Sara Milonovich (ASCAP) c. 2012


The stars have long drawn the curtains closed on this town
The shops are all shuttered and streetlights are coming on
Give me a bouquet of burning tobacco and watery asphalt
Peek out from under the overhang by the sidewalk


Now we're burning the fogbanks down
As a sleepless sparrow cries for the dawn
Waits for the stars to come on


The gutters are flooding a river of hollowed-out eyes
One more holiday stolen away- hidden beneath all the signs
I studied the weave of the carpet as we tried to talk
We studied the games of the market, but the damn deck's stacked up all wrong


Try not to wish you'd never known
Pieces of letterhead paving the roads of
Cold cities of steel and stone


We're lending the outside outrage some armchair support
With a sympathetic wave, or a streetlight symphony of horns
Traffic's alright on the highway to heaven-knows-where (devil may care)
But there's blood and fur on the shoulder and the guardrail's gone out there


Why wonder just where it went wrong
It's a longer view when the leaves are all gone
Wait for the clouds to move on

Look up while the sun's going down
This time of year it gets dark early on
Remember to leave a light on