Verse 1
We were fifteen when we found that corner seat,
a table with a limp and one short leg.
I stuffed a beer mat underneath it, kept it steady for a week —
you brought a screwdriver on the Friday after that.
Twenty-five years later, same old wood,
and nobody has had to shim it since.
Verse 2
We say the seven o'clock, you hear the half past eight,
you come in with your jacket buttoned wrong.
You order, you sit down, you start to sing —
and every single note comes out too loud and comes out wrong.
The barman puts his towel down and sighs,
and honestly, the night can't start till then.
Chorus
Same old pub, same corner, same old chairs,
your glass is warm, your timing's always late.
You sing it wrong, you sing it twice as loud —
and nothing in this room has come apart.
The table doesn't wobble, Tom, not once in all these years,
because you got down on the floor and made it hold.
Verse 3
You fixed my car with a coat hanger and a swear,
you glued four kitchen chairs I should have thrown away.
And the winter that my marriage came off its hinges,
you didn't bring a toolbox — you just came.
You sat there Friday after Friday, saying nothing much,
until the shaking in my hands ran out.
Bridge
Forty candles, and you'll be late to blow them out.
You'll sing your own song flat and take a bow.
But there's a thing I've carried since that winter,
and I've never had the nerve to say it out loud —
so I put it in a song, and here it comes,
right through the middle of your birthday, ready or not.
Chorus
Same old pub, same corner, same old chairs,
your glass is warm, your timing's always late.
You sing it wrong, you sing it twice as loud —
and nothing in this room has come apart.
The table doesn't wobble, Tom, not once in all these years —
and neither do I, because you fixed me too.
Outro
You fixed my car, my chairs, that stubborn leg,
and when I broke, you fixed me too — I mean it.
So happy fortieth, you loud, unpunctual man.
The corner's saved. Be late. We'll wait.