Dear Mrs. Moss, I’m writing you today,
‘Cos I’m thinking about the heroes in my past
and your name is right up there on my hit parade
‘Cos I’d show up after school
With my music books in hand,
And I always looked so sad I’d never practiced
much that week but somehow you’d just understand.
Then I’d feel so isolated
Like a bird inside a cage
I’m oval and I’m awkward and I’m too tall for my age
And my family’s always fighting and the one I blame is me
And you come back from the kitchen
Smelling of coffee and cigarettes
And say “Dear, you play beautifully.”

Your husband, Mr. Moss, hanging on the wall,
you told me about him in a voice so adoringly
you sounded just like Lauren Becol.
Cancer took his life,
and left you in the dark,
In a small town in South Ontario
with your students and your piano and this void in your heart.
Well I know what it feels like
To be totally in love,
It’s the only inspiration it’s the only kind of drug,
And you’re so full of emotion you feel you’re gonna bust
All over your piano
When you made me play that
Romance be Sebalias.

Musical Interlude

Dear Mrs Moss, I bought a little house,
And a little black piano it sits in the front room
in the corner by the window facing south,
And I play it every day,
Just because it’s there,
Oh even on a night like this when it seems like,
What’s the point in trying when
nobody cares?
Everything is different now, music isn’t art,
It’s an industry commodity a number on a chart,
And I’m feeling for a lyric and I’m feeling for a key,
And I feel you standing
behind me saying,
“Dear, you play beautifully.”