[Intro] (Driving, syncopated drum beat enters. A bright, swirling accordion riff climbs over a fuzzy bassline.) [Verse 1] The blueprints are curling at the edges of the desk A blueprint of a life I never signed You built a monument to all your own grotesque And left the mortar and the dust for me to find I’m pacing through the atrium, a ghost in pleated wool While the winter wind is whistling through the eaves The pulleys and the levers, oh, they’re rhythmic and they’re full Of the hollow promises a dead man leaves [Pre-Chorus] And the neighbors crane their necks behind the gate To see the lady in her high and lonely state [Chorus] Oh, I am the widow of the grand design! I’m the master of the angles and the plumb-bob line You can keep your marble arches and your colonnades I am burning down the garden in the evening shades Let the rafters creak! Let the foundation groan! I’m reclaiming every goddamn heavy stone [Verse 2] You spoke of "symmetry" as if it were a prayer As if my hips were just a measurement of space But there’s a wildness in the drafty, midnight air That your protractors never managed to erase I’ve sold the silver and the heavy velvet drapes I’ve sent the footmen to the valley for the spring I’m dancing in the ruins of your fire-escapes And I am finding I don’t miss a single thing [Bridge] (Music swells with a frantic violin section and a crashing tambourine) The calcimine is peeling! The joists are starting to give! It’s a terrible thing to build a house Where nobody’s meant to live! (Short, jaunty organ solo—slightly dissonant) [Chorus] Oh, I am the widow of the grand design! I’m the master of the angles and the plumb-bob line You can keep your marble arches and your colonnades I am burning down the garden in the evening shades Let the rafters creak! Let the foundation groan! I’m reclaiming every goddamn heavy stone [Outro] (Tempo slows slightly, building into a dramatic, repetitive chant) Lay the cedar low... (Lay it low) Watch the iron glow... (Watch it glow) A widow's work is never done Until the sky absorbs the sun. (Big orchestral finish with a final, sharp snare hit) [End]
