Piano In The Dark

Scott Cuter and Jeffrey Hall composed the music for this song, then sent it Brenda Russell, who added lyrics. The title came first, and the story followed. Says Russell, "I'm a person that collects song titles. You know, if I hear a good title, like talking to a friend or whatever, I'll write it down. I keep a little song title book. I always think that in every title there's a song somewhere, and you've just got to thin it out. So when they sent me this music, I thought, 'Whoa, it's so haunting and beautiful, I love that.' And I was flipping through my title book and I just thought, 'Piano in the Dark, I wonder if that would go with that music I heard?' That's as easy as that happened. I had that title and I thought, 'Hmmm, maybe that'll work.'"

Russell was not initially sure what Piano in the Dark meant, but when she started writing lyrics, the story began to evolve. Says Russell, "I love it when it happens like that. You're not putting any rigid restrictions on how it's coming, you know, it's just boom - let's try that. Go for it, you know?" According to Russell, the song tells the story of a woman whose lover plays piano. "She wants to leave him, because she's really kind of bored. But every time she does that, he sits down and starts playing. And it sucks her right back in. She's so in love with the way he plays. And he plays in the dark, theoretically. It's not that literal, necessarily. But that's what keeps her to him, basically, is his music. And I just found that was an interesting story to write about."

This song creates a vivid image in many listeners' minds, which is something that Russell feels is important to the musical experience. Says Russell, "I was so disappointed as a songwriter when videos came out. Because I thought the video robbed the listener of creating their own personal images to the music (the video for this song is set in a nightclub on a rainy night just before closing time). Everyone had their own little image in their mind of what that song meant to them, or what they saw when they heard that song. And now we were creating an image for them to relate to the song. And the images most of the time weren't nearly as cool as what people could create in their minds, because the early videos were kind of boring, you know, they've come a long way since then."