[Intro, distant and cold, sparse harmonics ringing out over a slow polyrhythmic pulse, like something waking up in the dark, no vocals yet, tension building under the surface] [Verse 1, vocals enter low and unadorned, almost spoken at first, syncopated riff underneath tracking the vocal rhythm exactly] I was pressed inside a furnace made of light Every second there a thousand years compressed Then the star gave out and scattered me in flight Through the dark I drifted, unaddressed I was nothing with a name, nothing with a shape Just a number in the ash a sun had lost Waiting on a world I couldn't yet escape Counting down the years it always cost [Pre-chorus 1, vocal tightens into rhythmic unison with a palm-muted riff, tension climbing, drums building toward a downbeat hit] I had no home I had no frame I was just carbon Nothing to claim [Chorus, full band drops in on the downbeat, wall of sound, vocal shifts to a soaring clean register in contrast to the low verse, riff underneath still odd-metered and unresolved even at full volume] Six protons, spinning slow and small I fell through nothing, through it all I found a root, I found a stem I found a rib, I found a hem Now I am fixed here, in the lens of an eye I will not leave you until you die [Instrumental break, brief, odd-time breakdown, tom-heavy, no melody, disorienting and mechanical, like something being taken apart] [Verse 2, vocal returns lower again, more urgent than verse 1, riff has mutated slightly from verse 1's pattern, subtle but present] I moved through soil, through rainfall, through a leaf Through something breathing, something with a name I didn't know yet I would be the thief Of my own drifting, of my own claim I passed through blood, through breath, through cell and skin Most of me kept moving, kept the chain But some of me was chosen to stay in A quiet room no season could reclaim [Pre-chorus 2, same riff as pre-chorus 1 but vocal delivery more resolved, less strained, like the tension is finally being answered rather than built] Now I have a home Now I have a frame I am more than carbon I am someone's claim [Chorus, repeats, full arrangement, maybe a layered harmony vocal added on the second pass to widen it out] Six protons, spinning slow and small I fell through nothing, through it all I found a root, I found a stem I found a rib, I found a hem Now I am fixed here, in the lens of an eye I will not leave you until you die [Bridge, tempo and time signature shift, stripped back to just bass and vocal at first, then rebuilding piece by piece as instruments re-enter one at a time, mirroring atoms gathering] [Verse 3, final verse, vocal at its most intense and committed, full band, heaviest riff of the song, delivered like a closing argument rather than a story] I settled into something clear and small A lens that lets the light decide what's seen I will not turn to dust, I will not fall I'm older than the years you've ever been While your hands rebuild themselves again and again I stay exactly what I was at birth The star that died so I could start Is still the only thing you're worth [Outro, final chorus fragment repeated once more but stripped down to just the "Six protons" line, echoing and decaying out, instruments dropping away one by one until only a single sustained tone remains, then silence]
