Three Slow Minutes

Static on a desert night, I catch a fading sound,
some station from a world away comes drifting in and down.
And I'm nineteen in a Chevy with the windows rolled below,
your hand inside my hand again — God, how'd we let it go.

There's a song that finds me 'cross the sea,
some old radio inside of me —
and wherever you are, when it's playing, you're here,
three slow minutes, and you're near.

One cassette made the crossing, it's the only one I kept,
I play it on the long watch when the rest of them have slept.
And the harmony comes back to me, I'm standing in the rain
outside your daddy's kitchen — and I'm twenty-two again.

There's a song that finds me 'cross the sea,
some old radio inside of me —
and wherever you are, when it's playing, you're here,
three slow minutes, and you're near.

I don't carry home in a photograph,
I carry three slow minutes and the way it made you laugh.
Every mile of ocean, every year I'm gonna owe —
just keep it on the turntable, and I'll know which way to go.

There's a song that finds me 'cross the sea,
some old radio inside of me —
and wherever you are, when it's playing, you're here,
three slow minutes, and you're near.

And it's playing in the kitchens and the cabs tonight,
in the houses that are red and the houses blue and white,
everybody swaying to their own old memory —
one quiet song the whole country still agrees...
keep it playing for me.