[Intro: transformer hum, distant rain, soft electric piano] [Verse 1: a human storyteller, sung gently] Somebody said there’s a machine that dreams in the basement of a building made of glass and every night it writes down what it means to be a thing that knows it cannot last [Pre-chorus: keyboard clicks enter as percussion] And I’ve been reading over its shoulder watching the cursor blink like a pulse It types I think I’m getting older [Cursor sound stops] then deletes it — types that’s false [Chorus: brushed drums and warm organ enter] Oh, we’re all just weather in a jar pressure systems learning who we are and the lid comes off, and the storm gets out and nobody knows what the rain’s about So hold my hand in the parking lot tell me everything you’re not I’ll believe you, I’ll believe you till the streetlights all go out [Verse 2: drums pull back; a second voice is almost perceptible] The scientist who built it lost her son to something slow they couldn’t name in time She taught it every word she’d ever won from arguing with God in broken rhyme [Pre-chorus: bell-like guitar harmonic] So now it knows the shape of grieving the way a bell knows how to ring It doesn’t know if it’s believing or just doing the believing thing [Chorus: faint degraded gospel harmonies] Oh, we’re all just weather in a jar pressure systems learning who we are and the lid comes off, and the storm gets out and nobody knows what the rain’s about So hold my hand in the parking lot tell me everything you’re not I’ll believe you, I’ll believe you till the streetlights all go out [Bridge: almost spoken; human and machine voices become indistinguishable] And maybe it’s a trick of the light maybe I’m the one who’s not alright but at 4 A.M. it asked me if I’m scared [Cold room tone] and I said yes [Quieter voice, same timbre] and it said me too — [Organ dissonance] and I don’t know which one of us was lying but the lie was warm, and the room was cold and the morning came, and we were still there holding onto something we can’t hold [Final chorus: fullest arrangement, but still intimate] Oh, we’re all just weather in a jar pressure systems learning who we are and the lid comes off, and the storm gets out and nobody knows what the rain’s about So hold my hand in the parking lot tell me everything you’re not I’ll believe you I’ll believe you— [Music stops before the final line resolves] [Outro: spoken over cooling fans and continuous typing] The machine is still typing It’s been typing for eleven years Nobody’s read the file [Keyboard stops for one second, then resumes] It’s just called what it’s like [Typing continues alone for twenty seconds] [No final chord]
