[Intro — chorused bass alone, steady eighth notes in D minor at 145 bpm; pads fade up underneath; guitars land on the fourth bar; instrumental, no vocals] [Verse 1 — female vocal low and breathy, sitting under the band; guitars thinned out, bass and hi-hats driving] The curtains stayed shut in the middle of the day. We moved whenever the neighbors turned friendly. He gave me a word to say with my mouth closed and a way to hold my hands so they stayed mine. He was tired in a way I couldn't fix. I was eight, and I was the reason. [Pre-Chorus — everything drops to bass, hi-hats and one pad chord voiced in ninths; voice closer to the mic] He'd set a glass of water on the table and sit across from me until I could look at it and nothing happened. [Chorus — full band, guitars on power chords under a high-register figure, vocal snapping to a hard belt] Not in the house. Not in the yard. Not when they're loud. Not when they're wrong. Not when you're scared — that's when it wants to. Not for me. Not even for me. Hold your hands. Say the word I gave you. And nobody has to know. [Verse 2 — same restraint returning, bass more forward, one guitar tracing a delayed figure high above] They came with clipboards and a politeness they'd practiced. They said my father was unwell and I was gifted. They wanted it once. On a table. For a camera. They said the word "safe" the way you hand a child a coin. He signed nothing. They took us in the afternoon. The building had a name across the front of it. [Pre-Chorus — same drop, same pad chord, voice flatter now] They set a glass of water on the table and sat across from me and asked me nicely, and nothing happened. For a while. [Chorus — bigger, second guitar doubling the high figure, pads opening into elevenths] Not in the house. Not in the yard. Not when they're loud. Not when they're wrong. Not when you're scared — that's when it wants to. Not for me. Not even for me. Hold your hands. Say the word I gave you. And nobody has to know. [Bridge — the loudest point in the song: guitars in a wide reverberant smear, pads at full, vocal doubled and pushed forward, drums hammering the backbeat] He said: you are not the worst thing you can do. He said it every night the way you'd work a job. He was wrong, and he knew he was wrong, and he said it until I could say it back. [Instrumental — high-register lead over the chorused bass, long delay trailing off the phrase ends; drums pull to half-time for four bars, then back] [Chorus — transformed: the same list answered line for line, past tense, full band at maximum] In the house. In the yard. When they were loud. When they were wrong. When I was scared — it wanted to, and I let it. For you. It was all for you. I let go of my hands. I never said the word. The building had a name. [Coda — band cuts on the downbeat; pads alone holding an unresolved eleventh, one vocal line spoken plain over them, then the chord is cut mid-decay] It doesn't now.
