Tighten The Rope - Ava Riot

[INTRO] Fingerpicked acoustic guitar only. Slow, close-mic’d. Heavy plate reverb on the vocal, almost drowning it. Breaths audible. No drums. Intimate, like she’s singing into the dark two feet from you. [VERSE 1] [Soft, conversational, slightly cracked, sitting on the edge of the note] The streetlight through the blinds still draws your shape on the wall I never painted over. I keep the glass you left half-full like it might remember how to hold you. Your hoodie still smells like the last honest night before the words started tasting like metal. I talk to the empty side of the bed and pretend the silence answers back. [PRE-CHORUS] [harmony enters low and ghostly under the last two lines — stacked thirds, distant, like another version of her from another room] You never raised your voice. You just got quieter. And I filled every quiet with hope until hope was all I had left. [CHORUS 1] [still mostly acoustic. Vocal lifts but stays vulnerable. Light delay tails. Harmonies bloom on “hope alive” and “love die” — one close, one floating an octave up, washed in reverb] Every single lie you told me was just another way to keep the hope alive. I believed in you, so foolishly… while you tightened the rope and watched love die. [VERSE 2] [Guitar adds a second acoustic layer, slightly more present. Vocal a little stronger, still intimate, more raw on the consonants] I learned the map of every excuse you carved into the kitchen table. “Just tired.” “Just work.” “Just give me time.” I memorized them like prayers. You’d kiss my forehead like a benediction then leave the room already gone. I kept watering a garden you’d already salted. [PRE-CHORUS] [Harmonies thicker now, slightly detuned for that uneasy ethereal pull] You never slammed the door. You just stopped coming home inside it. And I called it patience while the air got thinner. [CHORUS 2] [first lift. Kick drum enters soft and distant, like a heartbeat under the floorboards. Bass follows, warm and low. Vocal opens up — still melodic, not screamed, but the top of her chest voice starts to ring. Harmonies stack three-part on the last two lines] Every single lie you told me was just another way to keep the hope alive. I believed in you, so foolishly… while you tightened the rope and watched love die. [BRIDGE] [Strip back again for four bars — just voice and a single ringing open chord. Then the soundscape swells: shimmering reverse-reverb swells, distant bowed guitar, high ethereal “ooh” pads. Vocal is close, almost spoken-sung, breaking on the edges] I can still feel the knot you tied behind my ribs. You never pulled hard. You just… waited for me to lean into it. I kept saying “we’re okay” so you wouldn’t have to be the one who said we weren’t. [Pause. One held breath. Then:] [FINAL CHORUS / EXPLOSION] [Full band slams in. Distorted rhythm guitar, crashing cymbals, driving but not frantic. The acoustic is still there underneath like a ghost. Lead vocal soars — belted, open-throated, riding the edge of control. Layered harmonies everywhere: one tight, one huge and cathedral-wide, one whispered and delayed behind her like a memory she can’t shake. Reverb becomes a hall. Last line of each couplet she holds and climbs] Every single lie you told me was just another way to keep the hope alive! I believed in you — so foolishly — while you tightened the rope and watched love die. Every single lie you told me was just another way to keep the hope alive. I believed in you, so foolishly… [voice cracks upward into a long, ringing high note] while you tightened the rope and watched... love... die. [band holds the last chord. Vocal ad-libs over it — wordless, soaring, then collapsing back into a raw, almost spoken “die…” as everything washes out into reverb and a single dying acoustic string] [OUTRO] [Back to almost nothing. Fingerpicked guitar, one last close-mic’d line, barely above a whisper] I still leave the light on in case hope ever comes home. [Guitar rings out. Fade.]