[NO MORE WAR] [INTRO — DISTANT ROOM / REVERSED LULLABY] [An old voice, nearly lost beneath tape noise] Before anyone taught us what belonged to whom… We slept beneath the same moon. [Four-note broken-crown motif, played backward] [VERSE 1 — CLOSE MALE BARITONE] No more war… Just one forsaken door. Can we stop asking for more? Can we be satisfied with what we’ve always fought for? The peace away from war. The room where nobody needs to win anymore. The breath beneath the argument. The face behind the uniform. A hand without a weapon is still a hand— It still remembers what hands were for. [PRE-CHORUS — HEARTBEAT APPEARS] But the fear says: Hold it. The hunger says: Take. The memory says: Never forget what they did yesterday. And somewhere underneath them, something quieter is trying to say— [CHORUS — RESTRAINED, HAUNTING] No more war. No more teaching every wound to make another wound. No more war. No more turning every difference into separate rooms. If peace is only silence while we’re waiting to attack— Then peace was never here. It only learned to wear a mask. No more war. Not when someone loses. When nobody needs the war back. [POST-CHORUS — CHILDLIKE MELODY, NO WORDS] Ooh—oh… Ooh—oh… [Underneath, almost inaudible] Wake up… [VERSE 2 — BROKEN BEAT ENTERS SIDEWAYS] We inherited the borders before we learned the land. Inherited the answers before we learned to understand. They placed history in our mouths and told us what to taste. Gave every grief an enemy. Gave every fear a face. Then we raised our children carefully beneath the same divided sky— Teaching them which tears were sacred and which suffering to deny. Everybody wants protection. Everybody builds a wall. Nobody notices protection becoming a prison for us all. [PRE-CHORUS — HARMONY BEGINS DETUNING] The flag says: Follow. The grave says: Choose. The crowd says: If you don’t stand with us, then you deserve to lose. But the earth beneath the battlefield doesn’t know which blood is whose. It only receives what we choose. [CHORUS — LARGER] NO MORE WAR. No more feeding ancient anger with a newly written name. NO MORE WAR. No more calling vengeance justice just to keep alive the flame. If victory needs children to inherit what we hate— Then victory is only grief arriving one generation late. No more war. Not another glorious attack. The bravest hand may be the one that does not strike back. [INSTRUMENTAL — THE DREAM BENEATH THE SONG] [The drums lose one beat every fourth measure.] [The reversed lullaby begins turning forward.] [Fragments from the piano, arp, violin and voice gradually align.] [Left whisper] What if we are dreaming? [Right whisper] What if we can wake? [Center] What if every enemy is a mirror fear creates? [BRIDGE — “AWAKEN” ACROSTIC / MUSIC NEARLY SILENT] All the names we gave the darkness were reflections of our pain. We carried sleeping generations like thunder in our veins. A child does not arrive here already knowing whom to fear. Kindness has to be remembered. Even hatred must be learned here. Nobody is born demanding that another disappear. [Single heartbeat stops] [Spoken] If hatred can be taught— [Breath] Then something else can be remembered. [THE HIDDEN MELODY AWAKENS] [SECOND CHORUS — NEW MELODY ABOVE THE OLD CHORDS] Wake the dream we buried underneath the warning. Wake the hands that still remember planting. Wake the voice before it learned which side to blame. Wake the child before the world assigned a name. We are not the flags above us. We are not the graves below. We are every living question our ancestors didn’t know. No more war— Not because the past was small. Because we finally understood the future carries all. [FINAL CHORUS — BOTH MELODIES INTERLOCK] NO MORE WAR! No more teaching every wound to make another wound! WAKE THE DREAM! Open every locked and frightened room! NO MORE WAR! No more calling silence peace while weapons breathe behind our backs! WAKE THE DREAM! Peace begins when nobody needs the war back! No chosen people. No abandoned ones. No sacred hatred passed from fathers into sons. No more asking who deserves the rising sun. It rises. It rises— For everyone. [ALL SOUND CUTS] [Ten seconds of apparent silence] [A child takes one breath] [OUTRO — THE DREAM SPEAKS] [Unprocessed child voice] What were hands made for? [Warm male voice] To hold. What was land made for? To grow. What was difference made for? [Long silence] To show us what we do not know. [Door knock—once] [The first note of “Balance Knocking” answers] [Whisper] No more war doesn’t begin when the fighting ends. It begins when the dream wakes up.
