Song title: "The Songs I Left Behind"
Language: English

[Intro]

[Solo violin plays a worn variation of the album motif over twelve-string guitar.]

[Verse 1]

A cardboard box beneath the bed,
A cable tied in faded red,
Old headphones with a loosened seam,
Still holding half a younger dream.
The folder reads two thousand nine.
I press a track I used to know.
A station blurs behind the glass;
The room becomes a train in snow.

[Refrain]

These are the songs I left behind,
Still keeping rooms I could not find.
They held my place without a sound
Until I dared to turn around.

[Verse 2]

One album smells of summer rain,
Cheap red wine and midnight trains.
One track recalls a kitchen chair,
My father humming, unaware.
Another finds the rented flat,
The yellow lamp, the sleeping cat.
No memory returns complete,
But each one lands upon the beat.

[Refrain]

These are the songs I left behind,
Still keeping rooms I could not find.
They held my place without a sound
Until I dared to turn around.

[Guitar Solo]

[Melodic guitar and solo violin trade phrases across the waltz pulse.]

[Bridge]

I thought the past would ask me why
I let its colours drain and dry.
Instead it sits beside my chair:
"You took the road that led from there."

[Final Refrain]

These are the songs I left behind,
Not dead, not pure, not trapped in time.
They do not ask me to return;
They show what still remains to learn.
These are the songs I left behind,
Now threaded through the life I find.

[Outro]

[The violin ends on the warmer form of the three-note motif.]

I seal the box.
The music stays.
