Intro (Kora cascades enter, processed and delayed) (808 bass drops like ancient drums) The desert has seen this before. Verse 1 Beneath the palace, beneath the stone A thousand children's unmarked bones The priests said sacrifice, the king said fate The scribes wrote glory on the temple gate Every dynasty does the same Different gods, but the same game Build the monument over the grave Carve the lies that the wind won't save Chorus The sand knows names The sand knows names Every empire, every age— The powerful play the same old game The sand knows names The sand knows names Bury the evidence deep But the pattern stays the same Verse 2 In the court of the great sun lord Concubines younger than his sword The poets sing his wisdom bright The desert buries what happened at night A thousand years, another throne Different crown, same broken bones The merchants pay, the judges turn The archives fed into the fire to burn Pre-Chorus (Kora intensifies, talking drums rise) Who built the tombs? Who never came home? Who wrote the history? Who guards what's known? Chorus The sand knows names The sand knows names Every empire, every age— The powerful play the same old game The sand knows names The sand knows names Bury the evidence deep But the pattern stays the same Bridge (Minimal: just Kora and desert wind sounds) The desert is patient The desert is old It watches empires rise It swallows their gold (Polyrhythmic drums accelerate) Every hundred years, the same crime Every hundred years, they think this time No one will remember No one will find The bodies beneath the empire's shine Verse 3 Time erodes what they buried deep The desert gives up secrets they meant to keep Not the treasures in the gilded hall But the island where the children fall Not the feast days carved in stone But who sailed there, who was flown Not the alliance the scribes proclaim But the guest list no one will name Final Chorus (Full ceremonial intensity) The sand knows names The sand knows names Every empire, every age— The cycle stays the same The sand knows names The sand knows names Different language, different crown Same violence, same shame Outro (Kora dissolving into wind and distant echoes) The desert remembers What the scribes forget The sand is the scroll The wind is the witness It happened before It happens again The powerful bury The desert reclaims (Fade: wind across dunes, faint Kora, eternal bass hum)
