///*****/// [Intro] No map admits the road through a candlelit hotel where every clock has stopped, Yet boot and heartbeat mark a stubborn time. The dark has learned the language of command, But not the word that makes a free soul kneel. [Verse 1] The gate is barred with promises and rifles, The herald reads surrender from a scroll. I see the ink run black beneath his fingers, But no decree can requisition soul. We wore our losses underneath our armor, We learned to breathe where hope was rationed thin. Now every footstep magnifies the answer: The walls are strong, but stronger hearts begin. [Pre-Chorus] Let the warning drums awaken, Let the hidden doors unseal. What was whispered now is spoken, What was wounded now is steel. [Chorus] Dance me through the velvet funeral! Let the hammering heavens hear our cry. Dance me through the velvet funeral! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the night that calls us liars, We will carry living iron, we will carry living fires. Dance me through the velvet funeral! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky. [Verse 2] They promised peace, but sent us desire that erases names and memories room by room. They dressed the oldest hunger up as law. I watched the faithful trade away their names, Then in the ruin I uncovered a black rose pinned to a velvet curtain; It held the warmth of everyone who fell, And showed my empty hands what they must fight. [Chorus] Dance me through the velvet funeral! We were born to stand, not wait to die. Through the smoke and through the wound, carry the living fire. Dance me through the velvet funeral! Raise the truth across the sky. [Bridge] If I return alone, remember this: I will meet the truth even if her kiss is the grave. No monument can breathe for those it buries, No sacred word can make a falsehood clean. The future is not granted by the mighty; It starts wherever ordinary hearts convene. [Guitar Solo - a smoky melodic solo using minor-sixth bends, descending harmonies and a brief clean-guitar echo before the final chorus] [Rhythm guitars hold the central motif while bass and drums widen the battlefield.] [Verse 3] This is the tale of a dangerous romance with a woman who may be death in human form. The weak became a wall around each other, The lost became a road across the rain. We learned that hope is neither soft nor silent, It bites the hand that feeds the world despair. It lifts the fallen standard from the gutter, And makes a kingdom out of those who care. [Final Chorus] Dance me through the velvet funeral! Let the last horizon answer to our cry. Dance me through the velvet funeral! We have learned the dark can bleed and empires die. Through the smoke, through the wound, through the years that tried to break us, We are neither owned nor ended; every scar will remake us. Dance me through the velvet funeral! Raise the truth until it cuts across the sky.
