Song notes · AI-assisted
WE DIDN'T WRITE THAT PART
The Unplanned Part
About the song
Some songs don't get written. They walk in through the door and you just give them room.
About these notes
AI-assisted song notes, based on the sources shown here. Not yet human-reviewed.
Words from the artist’s archive
WE DIDN'T WRITE THAT PART lyrics
Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.
Read the lyric sheet
Intro
A dinner fork hit hardwood. Somebody laughed off-key. Four strangers turned together toward what none could see.
Verse 1
Before we learned the numbers, my mother hummed at dawn. The kettle held one thin note after she had gone. A chair leg struck the floorboard. The floor gave back a beat. I did not know what music was. I knew it noticed me.
Verse 2
Bread waited in the dishcloth. Rain filled the kitchen pail. Both would get us through till Friday. Then Mama missed the scale. My brother found a harmony. The screen door shook in time. We forgot the bowls between us. No one called it mine.
Refrain
We didn't write that part.
Verse 3
At ten, the screen drew boxes around each breath and bend. At noon, we cut the silence where the hands began to blend. One chair left the live room. One wage became a plug. By five, the take was spotless. By six, it moved no one.
Refrain
We didn't write that part.
Verse 4
Thursday in the back room, the brush slipped off the snare. Your wrong note found my open chord and changed the weather there. The bass came in a bar too soon. I lost the line I'd planned. Four strangers held one silence like water in their hands.
Refrain
We didn't write that part.
Bridge
The drummer missed the landing. I held the note too long. The bass walked through the empty beat. The room leaned into song. No one waved us backward. No one named the key. We played the break four more times. It never came out clean.
Refrain
We didn't write that part.
Verse 5
I used to say I made it. I liked my name in lights. I took the bow for endings I could never make twice. Now I leave one chair open. I let the room run late. When wonder walks in barefoot, I do not clean the break.
Refrain
We didn't write that part.
Inside the recording
A dinner fork hit hardwood. Somebody laughed off-key.
Thursday in the back room, the brush slipped off the snare.
We didn't write that part.
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.