City Lights & Neon Dreams (version 2)

Verse

Neon sign on the corner store window

Reading 'Marlowe' in gold paint and chrome

Sixteen summers playing every small stage around here

Never sang a single song that didn't say I'm coming home

I drove past your street at midnight last night

Window lit up like it was waiting for me to arrive tonight

Your mom's old record still spinning low on the floor

Same four chords I used to play outside your door

Pre-Chorus

Do you remember how we used to run in circles around this block?

Every streetlamp buzzing out a rhythm nobody stopped

Chorus

So here's my story, written in city lights

Neon bleeding on the sidewalk tonight

I was chasing gold just like they say I should be

But sometimes that's just code for being free

Verse

Moved to LA three years ago with nothing but a suitcase full of chords

Stripped my name down to a single syllable — call me Marlowe now

Six-string hero on the Sunset Strip tonight

Playing to a hundred strangers who don't know where I came from

Your sister's watching from the second row in silver hair

Same smile she gave me at sixteen when we stood outside this bar

Now my name is plastered up high above the door

Still I find myself walking past your house for more

Pre-Chorus

Do you remember how we used to run in circles around this block?

Every streetlamp buzzing out a rhythm nobody stopped

Chorus

So here's my story, written in city lights

Neon bleeding on the sidewalk tonight

I was chasing gold just like they say I should be

But sometimes that's just code for being free

Bridge

Maybe success is just a word they teach you to believe

Maybe home is anywhere there's something left of me

I've won every award, I've got a platinum plaque on my wall

Still the city don't feel like the real place at all

It's your porch light calling out across the years

Saying come back, baby — I still hear you here

Chorus

So here's my story, written in city lights

Neon bleeding on the sidewalk tonight

I was chasing gold just like they say I should be

But sometimes that's just code for being free