Lyrics The Prelude - Preludes Original Cast

Tell me about this piece

I wrote it... when I was nineteen
I... I have no idea how I did it
I was in a practice room at school and
I was just playing around in c sharp minor

C sharp minor kinda the coolest key
It just feels really dark and silken under the fingers
Like midnight
But a really sophisticated midnight
Sleek
And super ancient, like si-fi ancient
And sneaky and sensual
And rich
Anyway
The chords just came
I mean they're pretty obvious
Just c sharp up to e and then back down and
Then a to g sharp and then Back down and...
I just wanted it to be loud
Just fucking loud
And epic
I wanted to write something that would
Shake the walls
Upset my teachers

There's so much restraint
You know?
So much that is precious

I just wanted
To really play the piano
Ya know?

And then it got published
And it was a hit
And people loved it
And they loved me
And for a while
It was amazing

I was nineteen and people were stopping me in the street
And asking me to sign things
And fawning over me
And I mean people would be inarticulate
When they found out that I wrote The Prelude
The Prelude
Oh Wow

And I would play it everywhere I went
At concerts, at bars, at people's houses
And they would gush
And they would freakout
And they would ask me to play it again
And again
And again

And it got to be that now whenever I go
To a party and I see a pano in the room
I tense up just waiting for it

And then, and then
Sometimes instead they'll ask me to listen, to listen to them play it
And I'll walk down the street
In a town that I have never been to
And hear it coming from apartment windows
And its four sharps
Which is a lot for some people and so there'd be so many wrong notes
And I know that they're trying but oh the wrong notes are just

And one I was on tour
And they put me in this fucking great apartment and this guy next
Door to me was practicing it all day long and I
Would pound on the wall and yell stop stop stop
And I'm sure he thought I was just some asshole who doesn't like music
Oh and then it got published in the states which I still don't see
Any money from because the
International copyright laws are so fucked up
So even now when I go there they'll be playing it
And they'll ask me to play it
And I just

I just

I wrote it when I was nineteen and
I've written a lot of other things since
And it's just
What if
What if that was the one
What is that was the one best thing that I'll ever do
And I
Spend the rest of my life
Just getting worse
And worse
And drying up
Uninspired
And I never become great
I never fulfill
All because one afternoon in a
Freezing little practice room that I don't even
I don't even know
How that happened