[Intro][Slide guitar bends the three-note motif while cymbals imitate rain on the workshop roof. The applause fades; no one speaks.]

[Verse 1][Male Vocal: Father]
Prague after midnight shone yellow and bright,
The brakes screamed once, then fell still in the night.
I stepped to the platform and lifted my case;
The zip split its teeth at the pull near the base.
A shirt hit a puddle, two letters slid free,
Then blue wool went spinning past women and men;
It stopped by the rail, inches short of my knee:
Anna's small cap from the winter she turned ten.

[Pre-Chorus][Male Vocal: Father]
The whistle said hurry; the green signal shone,
The carriage doors warned they were ready to close.
Nico jumped down, caught the cap on the stones,
Then pulled me aboard as the warning tone rose.

[Chorus][Male Vocal: Father]
The blue cap in the rain, its colour held fast,
Through stations I counted the years I let pass.
The blue cap in the rain lay warm in my hand;
A father can cross countries and still not understand.
I boarded with one question I could not explain:
Would Anna open the door, or leave me in the rain?

[Verse 2][Male Vocal: Father]
Nico said, "That was more than a hat."
I spread it on newsprint and laid the brim flat.
She wore it each morning beside the old bay,
Till a gull stole her breakfast and carried it away.
Her mother moved south. I kept saying, "Next spring."
By autumn, our calls had grown guarded and plain.
Anna stopped asking if I'd come back again;
I kept making plans and missed every train.

[Pre-Chorus][Male Vocal: Father]
The carriage pulled out with a shuddering sway,
Prague folded its bridges and faded from sight.
I dried the blue wool as the rain slipped away,
And watched my face split in the black window light.

[Guitar Solo][Tremolo guitar circles the chorus melody. Slide guitar answers with a short phrase; the audience remains still.]

[Verse 3][Male Vocal: Father]
I carried apologies drafted at night,
Each neat on the page, each useless in light.
They blamed work and distance, the price of the fare;
The cap smelled of cedar and dust in the air.
I tore every speech into strips by the glass
And kept six plain words for seeing her at last.

[Bridge][Male Vocal: Father]
In Trieste, she might still be asleep.
Her front door might open or stay bolted tight.
I folded the cap; I stopped shaping a speech,
And kept only six words I knew to be right.

[Break][Male Vocal: Father, almost spoken]
Should've come sooner.
I'm here now.

[Final Chorus][Male Vocal: Father with Soft Ensemble Harmony]
The blue cap in the rain, its colour held fast,
Through stations I counted the years I let pass.
The blue cap in the rain lay warm in my hand;
A father can cross countries and still not understand.
I boarded with one question I could not explain:
Would Anna open the door, or leave me in the rain?

[Outro][The drums drop out. The father folds the cap; slide guitar resolves downwards into the harmonica blast of the next song.]

[Male Vocal: Father]
Should've come sooner.
I'm here now.
The train moved south.
I did not look away.