[INTRO — heartbeat / vinyl / distant radio voices] I loved you. I lost you. I found you. I became you. Different mouths... same words. Stay. [BEAT ENTERS — warm boom-bap] Somebody's falling in love tonight, somebody's holding a hand goodbye, somebody's calling their mother just to hear that voice one more time. Somebody forgave what they couldn't forget. Somebody hasn't learned how yet. Somebody's staring into a stranger's eyes thinking— I've felt you somewhere before. [PRE-CHORUS — melodic house begins bleeding underneath] Maybe love ain't something we own. Maybe it's something passing through. Me into you, you into them— and somehow... back again. [CHORUS — FULL UNIVERSAL HOOK] I choose you— when you're shining, when you're ruined, when I don't understand what you're going through. I choose we— not because we're the same, but because underneath every name— we hurt. we hope. we break. we grow. And everybody's looking for somebody who'll whisper— you don't have to carry this alone. [DROP — melodic house × gospel-soul × alt-rock] LOVE! Mother to daughter— brother to brother— lovers becoming two frightened strangers— LOVE! Hands across tables, hands through hospital rails, hands reaching backward for someone who isn't there— Still— LOVE! [VERSE 2 — half-time hip-hop / intimate vocal] We made religions of being right. Built little borders around our lives. My side. Your side. Their side. Then a child walks in and asks the question we were too damn grown to ask— "Why?" [ALL MUSIC STOPS] Why can't I love you and disagree? Why can't you change and still know me? Why does goodbye have to erase everything beautiful that used to be? ... Who taught us love had to choose a side? [SAX BREATH] [HORROR-TENDER SAX NOTE BENDS INTO A BEAUTIFUL MELODY] [BRIDGE — male/female call and response] MALE: I was afraid you'd leave. FEMALE: I was afraid I'd disappear. MALE: So I held too tight. FEMALE: So I ran from here. BOTH: And underneath everything we did from fear... was something embarrassingly simple— Please see me. [CHILDREN / DISTANT CROWD] See me. [ELDERLY VOICE] Remember me. [SOLO VOICE] Forgive me. [CROWD] LOVE ME. [BUILD — heartbeat accelerating] Every wedding— every funeral— every first kiss— every final breath— every "I'm sorry," every "come home," every "don't leave," every photograph of somebody we can't hold— was never proof that love failed. It was proof— LOVE WAS HERE. [FINAL DROP — ALL GENRES COLLIDE] So dance with me! Cry with me! Fight for me— then sit beside me! Be different! Be difficult! Be everything I never learned to understand! Because maybe peace was never everybody agreeing— Maybe peace was looking into the face of opposition and still refusing to forget— THAT'S SOMEBODY. [FINAL CHORUS — MASSIVE] I choose you! You choose me! But bigger than that— CAN WE CHOOSE WE? The living! The leaving! The lovers! The grieving! The saints and the sinners, the losers and winners, the frightened beginner still screaming within us— Come as you are. Not as you should've been. Not as you could've been. Not as they told you to be. Come breathing. Come broken. Come brilliant. Come free. Because underneath every language, every body, every border, every belief— there's that same ridiculous little heartbeat: BUM-BUM. Love me. BUM-BUM. See me. BUM-BUM. Hear me. BUM-BUM. ... WE. [FALSE END — SILENCE] A single child asks: "Is that it?" [one heartbeat] An old voice laughs softly: "No." [FINAL IMPOSSIBLE DROP] THAT'S WHERE IT STARTS. [OUTRO — thousands of voices dissolve into one heartbeat] bum-bum... bum-bum... bum-bum... [whisper] Love was never mine. Love was never yours. It was always ours.
