[Intro][The last audience refrain dies naturally. House lights rise halfway; hundreds of people stand completely still. One clean guitar plays three notes.]

[Spoken Word: Lead Vocal]

Stay quiet for this one.
Let the room speak.

[Verse 1: Voice of the Room]

I know every footstep that crossed through my door,
The quick nervous step and the slow load-in walk.
I know where the boards dip by monitor two,
Where lager finds sawdust and sticks to a shoe.
I know Moe's first key and the cleaner's last song,
The bolt you lift twice when the winter comes on.

[Refrain]

House lights on, empty floor,
No coats against the fire door.
Leave me dark, but leave one key;
A room needs hands, not elegy.

[Verse 2: Voice of the Room]

I held first appointments and final goodbyes,
A proposal half-lost in amplifier noise.
Seventeen birthdays, one wake after three;
An old coat on a hook where its owner should be.
A new singer froze at the opening bar,
Then finished one verse with her fists on her heart.

[Refrain]

House lights on, empty floor,
No coats against the fire door.
Leave me dark, but leave one key;
A room needs hands, not elegy.

[Instrumental Break][Bass enters under the clean guitar. One floor tom sounds every two bars; nobody in the audience claps.]

[Verse 3: Voice of the Room]

If they strip out the cables and level my stage,
Dust will keep prints from the boots of this age.
If windows are sealed and the flats numbered clean,
The lift shaft may shake where the kick used to be.
But timber cannot argue when paperwork wins;
I wait without language for hands to begin.

[Verse 4: Voice of the Room]

Do not mourn me as if I have already gone.
Do not hang black cloth or quote an old song.
Bring keys and accounts that survive being checked;
Bring builders who know where the roof has gone wet.
I need more than stories repeated with pride;
I stay in use when you organise.

[Bridge]

Tonight you stand quiet and hear what is bare:
The hum of the freezer, the fan pushing air.
Silence is not sacred. It is only a floor
Waiting for somebody to open the door.

[Chorus][Full drums enter for the first time; the house lights fall back to stage level.]

House lights on, empty floor,
No coats against the fire door.
Leave one lamp and leave one key;
Bring back the bodies that carry the beat.
House lights on, but not for long;
Turn them back down. Bring back the song.

[Final Chorus]

House lights on, crowded floor,
All those hands from wall to door.
Leave one lamp and lift one key;
Put names on the rota and hands on the deed.
House lights down; the night moves on.
Pass the keys before the next song.

[Outro][The clean guitar stops. A single key turns in the bar door; a ring of keys lands on wood.]

Leave one key.