Burning Rice

Intro Verse 1 He burned the eggs the morning of his honeymoon Set off the smoke alarm, made the neighbors come and look She stood in the doorway laughing, she could not stand He held a wooden spoon and swore on his mother's hand Verse 2 Twenty years of chili, twenty years of stew Twenty years of dishes she would not let him do She kept the list of forbidden things taped inside the spice cabinet door He kept trying every dish on it, two more times and one more Pre-Chorus Burnt rice Salty stew Cement-textured eggs Twenty years of love that had nowhere else to go Chorus She ate every bite he ever made She said the cake was the best he had ever made P.S. she wrote at the bottom of every recipe page If it does not come out right, I always loved how you cooked anyway He stood at the stove burning rice He was doing it perfectly He was crying and he was smiling And he was singing very softly Verse 3 She told him on the drive from the doctor — Tom, you have to cook He laughed first, then he understood, and then the laugh forsook For nine months he brought her every meal on a tray with a folded napkin And she ate every spoonful slow, like the most important thing she had been Chorus She ate every bite he ever made She said the cake was the best he had ever made P.S. she wrote at the bottom of every recipe page If it does not come out right, I always loved how you cooked anyway Bridge The notebook was behind the cinnamon sticks Sixty-seven recipes in her careful blue ink How to boil the water, how to chop the onion right How to season a stew so it tastes like something at night She had written it for him in her last weeks alone Every page ended with the same gentle line Every page ended with the same gentle line The same gentle line Final Chorus She loved how he cooked anyway She loved how he burned every pan that he made P.S. she had written in every recipe at the bottom of the page If it does not come out right, my love I always loved how you cooked anyway He stood at the stove burning rice And the kitchen smelled of smoke and salt And the kitchen smelled of love Outro Burning rice Burning rice He was doing it perfectly Twenty years of love That had nowhere else to go but the food