[Intro] —this is the future— —future— —future— We have heard this before. No. You only remember it. [Verse 1] Dust on the needle, ghost in the groove, somebody's rhythm learning to move. Cut it. Flip it. Name it again. Yesterday bleeding into the next. Voice from a record, face from a screen, half of a memory inside the machine. I know that sound— I know— Do I? I've heard this before. I've heard this before. I've heard— [Verse 2] Copy the pulse, fracture the source, shuffle the history, change the course. One little second, chopped into eight, mutation running ahead of the gate. Old becomes new, new becomes old, everything borrowed, nothing gets cold. Millions of echoes under my skin— Tell me exactly where I begin. [Pre-Hook] Trumpet Trumpet screamscreams. NeedNeedle le jjumumps. Drums Drums fall fall sidesideways. Signal Signal corruptcorrupts. A A voice voice sayssays: "Choose." Another says: But : "Already schosen.o" [Hook] Afterimage, afterimage, something remains when the moment is gone. Afterimage, afterimage, I hear the shape but the name is wrong. Was it yours? Was it mine? Was it buried somewhere in time? Afterimage— Machine. [Verse 3] The archive breathes. Every mesong, every word, every laugh, every mistake— available. Searchable. Breakable. Beautiful. The machine remembers more than I do. The machine combines faster than I can. The machine creates— ...does it? Create. Recreate. Create. Recreate. Cre— Re— Cre— Re— NEW / OLD ME / YOU TRUE / FALSE MAKE / CHOOSE NEW / OLD ME / YOU— [Bridge] When everything can return, what does it mean to remember? When everything can be made, what does it mean to create? If every road is built from roads before us— maybe the question was never "Is this new?" [Final Hook] Afterimage, afterimage, let the broken pieces run. Afterimage, afterimage, a thousand voices become one. But somewhere underneath where underneath the the noisenoise, be, beneath neath the the perfect perfect rereccombominebine, there is a hand that makes a choice. There is a pulse that falls behind. There is a breath that won't align. There is a flaw I still call mine. [Outro] Not everything should be corrected. Not everything should be clean. Not everything we call imperfect needs the machine. —what does it mean to create?—, I choose this one.
