Lonely Eighty Eight (Piano Charm) - Jill Sobule

I learned a major scale when I was nine or ten\nOn the baby grand in the corner of the mud room\nMy mother picked out Debussy and Gershwin now and then\nWhen she wasn’t weaving sweaters on her loom\nI learned the minor scales in middle school’s dark ages\nMy dad had packed his things and moved ‘cross town\nThe keys were chipped, the G sharp stuck, and the piece was missing pages\nBut I practiced and I swallowed it all down\nOn the lonely eighty-eight\nThe lonely eighty-eight\nWhether early, whether late\nOn the lonely eighty-eight\nIn high school there was football — but for me, diminished chords\nAnd a book on how to fake a little jazz\nIn chem class, kind of restless, in algebra so bored\nAnd the hallways were a kind of Alcatraz\nI took some composition in my first year up at state\nBut the teacher liked that stuff that had no key\nI never did get counterpoint, so I took an incomplete\nBut the practice rooms on Powers Street were free\nOn the lonely eighty-eight\nThe lonely eighty-eight\nIt was a Friday and no date\nBut the lonely eight-eight\nI dropped out of law school when I got an F in torts\nAnd I sold the Fender Rhodes to pay some bills\nThe paralegal gig, it was my last resort\nBut it wasn’t long before I got my fill\nAnd now I’m here alone as the moon goes thru its phases\nAnd the only folks who call are candidates\nI blow the dust off, pick a score, and limber up my wrists\nAnd in the stillness I begin to celebrate\nOn the lonely eighty-eight\nThe lonely eighty-eight\nWhether early, whether late\nIt’s a Friday with no date\nBut here I am with the lonely eighty-eight