[Intro — cosmic pads, low cryo-hum, slow heavy piano] There's a light in me that will not fade — the price of passage someone paid. [Verse 1 — rich, haunted, building] I am golden, I am young, I am every song unsung. The stars don't touch me, time won't try — I sleep in glass while the world goes by. But down in the hold, behind the doors, another life grows old for mine — it takes the watch, it takes the years, it takes the guilt, it takes the tears. [Chorus — soaring, glitch creeping in] Golden, golden, never old, a perfect shell the dark has sold — and the faces in the deep keep the years I'll never keep. The more I sleep, the more they rot, the safer I am, the more they're not — golden in the glass, golden and cold, and a hold full of the ones grown old. [Verse 2 — darker, the glitch spreading] Below me, generations turned — were born, and loved, and aged, and burned. A child that never saw the sun grew old and died before I'm done. They spent their one and only flame to keep me young, to keep me same, and I slept gold through every grave — the cargo that their whole lives gave. [Interlude — distant male voice, radio-filtered, breaking into static] "Log… generation forty… we still turn the ship… tell them we were here—" [static] [Bridge — strip to pads and voice, weightless] So I broke the glass to face the cost… [Bridge — strip to pads and voice, weightless] So I broke the glass to face the cost, to see the ones my sleeping lost — I struck the dark to make it stop, to close the ledger, close the shop — [Final Chorus — everything, then dissolve] But golden, golden, I was wrong — their grey was where I'd stood all along. The glass came down and broke the spell, and all their years came home to dwell — they found me ancient, found me grey, and every life I'd slept away — golden no longer, cold and whole, [distant male voice, radio-static:] "…one of us now…" and peace, at last, for a borrowed soul. [Outro — pads receding into a starfield] There was a light in me that would not fade… and I became the years they paid.
