[VOCAL RULE: natural voice tenor-baritone leads, sung legato with sustained vowels, half-time floating phrasing over broken-beat pulse — never rapid, clipped, or rhythm-locked. Floats above groove. [+f] = ADD high falsetto stack thirds/sixths above natural voice ONLY on tagged word — additive not mode-switch.] [Intro — 8 bars instrumental. Glassy plucked arp (dark velvet, no twinkle), muted piano ostinato, throbbing sub, clipped chamber strings, walking pluck bass slinky, broken-beat kit late-entering, off-beat rimshots, ghost snares, sidechained velvet pad, tape hiss.] [Verse 1 — tenor-baritone sung legato doubled close-mic, baritone counter under. Floats above pulse.] You came back with the years in your face, fine at the eyes, beautiful there. I know the places time has touched you because it found me everywhere. We used to speak as though tomorrow were an inexhaustible estate, leaving doors half-open behind us, certain we could choose them late. There were whole lives in the interval, rooms where neither of us stood. You loved people I never knew. I loved people as well as I could. And some of them became a history we still have every right to grieve. Funny, the things we called forever. Funny, the things we chose to leave. [Pre-Chorus — bass climbing, riser strings tighten, ghost snares build.] Put our youth on trial, we could testify for days. Every beautiful mistake has learned the contours of our face. We have evidence enough to make a ruin of the case— but neither verdict gives us back a single hour we gave away. [Chorus — full engine, broken-beat groove. Sung legato floating.] Jeunesse [+f] dorée, we were in the light until it changed us, bright enough to miss the ending, young enough to call it fate. Jeunesse [+f] dorée, all those years beyond each other— other loves and other losses, other countries, other names. We crossed the world. We learned what leaving takes. And after everything, you came back to me this way. Jeunesse [+f] dorée, look how long it took to know what we had made. [Post-Chorus — clipped vowel chops as sample percussion, not lead. Lead sung legato.] [+f] Dorée, dorée— all that beautiful delay. [+f] Dorée, dorée— all the years we gave away. [Verse 2 — bass slinkier, broken groove articulated. Sung legato floating, baritone shadow.] I remember departure lounges, morning light through unfamiliar glass, messages arriving out of sequence, months becoming photographs. We became fluent in elsewhere, learned the manners of goodbye, watched whole seasons through hotel windows, watched another decade slide. You had a hand to hold without me. I had someone saying mine. We meant the tenderness we offered. It is with us still tonight. I would never make them lesser just to make our ending right. Every person that we cherished changed the two standing here tonight. [Pre-Chorus 2 — denser.] There are choices I regret without pretending they were lies. There are roads I would have taken had I known the cost of time. You could name your own beside them. I can see them when you smile. Two people old enough to understand why love can still arrive late. [Chorus — as C1.] Jeunesse [+f] dorée, we were in the light until it changed us, bright enough to miss the ending, young enough to call it fate. Jeunesse [+f] dorée, all those years beyond each other— other loves and other losses, other countries, other names. We crossed the world. We learned what leaving takes. And after everything, you came back to me this way. Jeunesse [+f] dorée, look how long it took to know what we had made. [Breakdown — kick and rimshots drop. Muted piano + sub + pizzicato hold. Vocal sung legato close-miked, sustained.] I could say: we should have known. You could say: we almost did. There is nothing I can change without changing who returned. I want the life that brought you here. I only wish it had not taken quite so much of us to make. [Rebuild — clipped strings low, walking pluck bass returns, sub returns, displaced kick returns, riser strings climb.] [Final Chorus — modulates to F major. Full engine. Sung legato floating + +7 falsetto on peaks + baritone counter.] Jeunesse [+f +7] dorée, we were in the light until it changed us, watched it become something we could finally recognize. Jeunesse [+f] dorée, you have lived beyond my keeping. I have loved beyond your knowing. Still, I know you when you arrive. Jeunesse [+f] dorée— every road behind your eyes. Jeunesse [+f] dorée— every choice behind mine. And here we are, older than the promises we made, with all that love, all that loss, all that beautiful regret— and time, at last, unable to explain why you came back. [Outro — skeletal arp + muted piano + sub decay. Sung softly floating.] [+f] Dorée, dorée— all that beautiful delay. [+f] Dorée, dorée— you came back anyway.
