Studio Musician

(album: Rupert Holmes - 1975)

I am a studio musician.
We've never met, but you know me well.
I am the English horn that played the poignant counter-line.
Upon the song you heard while making love in some hotel.
I am a part of you. I've never tried for fame.
You'll never know my name.

I am the strings that enter softly,
Or three guitars that glitter gold;
I am the thousand trumpet lines that were an afterthought
Intended as a way to get a dying record sold.
I never ride the road. I never play around.
I play what they set down.

I'm a working musician, pulling my five a week;
I'm the voice through which empty men try to speak:
A studio musician,
Blowing the chance I seek.

And when the woodwind cushion rises,
I start to dream with the low brass bed…
And I reject the riffs and Hendrix licks they've paid me for,
That I've played before. Instead, they want what I hear in my head…
But I awake to horns. The drummer calls to me:
"We're up to Letter D!"

I'm a man of the moment. Pop is my stock-in-trade.
Singles, jingles, and demos conveniently made.
A studio musician,
Whose music will die… unplayed.