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Centre Stage

from Calm Before The Storm by Dave Semple

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about

University of Windsor, Essex Hall Theatre. I used to sneak into a storage room that had an old piano. If only that piano could talk, the stories it would tell.

lyrics

Center Stage

Well, my ebony’s worn and my ivories are yellowed and stained.
My pedals, they squeak, but I manage to hold my sustain.
My tuning is off, just a little, and my hammers grow brittle and grey,
And my strings aren’t as bright as they used to be back in the day.

In a ten-by-ten storage room somewhere stage left off the wings,
They have piled me high with stage curtains and boxes of things.
Not a window to look through at all, and the paint is all faded to grey
Then one night someone slipped though the door and started to play.

He sang…
I want to play center stage. How my music will take them away,
Through majors and minors, augmented, diminished, I will play.
When the lights shine on me, center stage, oh, I’ll carry their spirits away.
How I dream of the day when they ask me to play center stage.

He was young and inspired and his eyes held the depth of his dreams
He was rough ‘round the edges in his faded T-shirt and jeans
His lyrics were honest and gentle, but his melodies yearned to be free.
How I wanted to tell him I’ve been where he’s longing to be.

‘Cause I used to play center stage, and my music, it took them away.
Through majors and minors, augmented, diminished, I did play.
When the lights shone on me, center stage, oh, I carried their spirits away.
Now, I dream of the days when I used to play center stage.

And as his fingers flowed over the ivories in that storage room forgotten and grey
He gave back to me all the sweet memories of my life in the lights on the stage
And then he closed his eyes in the moment, and the storage room faded away
His future, my past, from the first to the last, found the music to take us away…

To where we could play center stage, and the music, it takes us away,
Through majors and minors, augmented, diminished, we play.
And the spotlights, they shine, center stage, and it carries our spirits away,
In the dead of the night, in a moment so right,
His future, my past, from the first to the last,
We’ll hold on to this night for the rest of our lives
As we stand in the light and we play…

Center stage.

Music and Lyrics by:
Dave Semple – 31 March 2011

credits

from Calm Before The Storm, released November 29, 2017
Orchestration and percussion by Paul Battersby
www.http://virtualplaying.com
Piano and vocals by Dave Semple

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all rights reserved

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about

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Dave Semple London, Ontario

Born in Montreal and raised in Noranda, Quebec, Dave is a graduate of the University of Windsor and has lived the last 30 years in London, Ontario as an educator, musician, actor, director, songwriter, and novelist. Playing live with just a guitar is THE BEST, but Dave loves spending time in his studio filling out the sound layers. Story is everything. ... more

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