Ninth Street’s lights fail again while evening takes the colour of cooling coffee. The refrain lets green become red and green once more, without regretting lateness. The bridge finds two people already where they want to be; the ordinary street is enough.
The 96 BPM bossa nova lounge direction leaves a gentle sway in nylon-guitar syncopation, upright bass, brushes and vibraphone, with muted-trumpet replies after choruses. Major-seventh harmony and a held final chord give conversational words time to settle.
Read the lyrics
[Verse]
The lights on Ninth are out again
The whole street breathing slow
You said you'd wait, you always do
And I'm in no rush to go
[Chorus]
So take the long way, take the long way
Let the green turn red and turn green again
Take the long way, take the long way
I have never once been early and I've never once complained
[Verse]
A radio in somebody's car
Is playing something old
The evening goes the colour of
A cup of coffee going cold
[Chorus]
So take the long way, take the long way
Let the green turn red and turn green again
Take the long way, take the long way
I have never once been early and I've never once complained
[Bridge]
Everybody's somewhere they would rather not be
Except the two of us and this ordinary street
[Chorus]
So take the long way, take the long way
Let the green turn red and turn green again
Take the long way, take the long way
I have never once been early and I've never once complained
[Chorus]
So take the long way, take the long way
Let the green turn red and turn green again
Take the long way, take the long way
I have never once been early and I've never once complained
