THE WATERFALL Black Quill — Dark Emo Rap / Underground Hip-Hop [Intro — 76 BPM, E minor; distant television static, muffled voices, soft rushing water; lonely clean electric guitar plays a repeating four-note melody] [Voice 1 — weary, nearly whispered] Nobody took the microphone. Nobody cut the wire. They just turned up everything else. [Instrumental — dusty kick and cracked snare enter; detuned guitar loop continues; deep bass pulses beneath] [Verse 1 — Voice 1, intimate melodic rap] I carried words across the years Like stones beneath my tongue Thought if I ever spoke the truth It might reach someone Now there’s a thousand songs a minute A million things to see Everybody’s making something Nobody’s listening Another face, another headline Another empty sound Before a single word can land A thousand more rain down [Pre-Chorus — guitar opens into wide reverb; drums fall away] They don’t have to burn the books They don’t have to ban the songs Just bury every honest voice Before it travels on [Chorus — Voice 1, wounded melodic hook; Voice 2 echoes final words] Turn down the waterfall I can’t hear you anymore There’s a thousand voices screaming But they never reach the shore Turn down the waterfall Let somebody’s words get through We’re drowning in the things they sell And losing what is true [Instrumental — eight bars; mournful distorted guitar lead, deep bass, tape hiss; distant overlapping radio voices grow louder] [Verse 2 — Voice 2, low gravelly rhythmic rap; dry snare, heavy bass] Another feed, another fix Another manufactured fight Another million empty clips To keep us scrolling through the night A song that might have changed the world Gets buried in a day Somebody singing something real But nobody hits play Would Dylan find his people now? Would Marley get a chance? Or would their words get washed away Before the world could understand? It’s not that no one’s speaking It’s not that no one cares It’s that the flood keeps getting higher Till the truth can’t reach the air [Pre-Chorus — Voice 2, drums cut out; low distorted bass remains] They don’t need to stop the message They just drown it in the sound You don’t have to kill a voice If you never let it be found [Chorus — Voice 1 lead, Voice 2 low harmony; thicker drums and distorted guitar] Turn down the waterfall I can’t hear you anymore There’s a thousand voices screaming But they never reach the shore Turn down the waterfall Let somebody’s words get through We’re drowning in the things they sell And losing what is true [Bridge — instrumental nearly silent; isolated clean guitar, muffled waterfall underneath] [Voice 1 — spoken, vulnerable] What if the next Bob Dylan Is singing in his room? What if the next Bob Marley Has something we could use? [Voice 2 — spoken, growing angry] And nobody gets to hear it. Not because they took his voice. Because they filled the whole damn world With a billion other noises. [Instrumental break — sixteen bars; dark detuned guitar melody, deep bass slides, sparse drums; layers of static, notifications and fragmented broadcasts gradually pile up into a crushing wall of sound; vocals remain absent] [Final Verse — Voice 2, forceful, increasingly urgent] They never had to break the pen Or take the pages down They only had to raise the noise Until it drowned the sound More media to bury media More garbage every day Another thousand voices lost Before they’ve had their say We’re not asking for a kingdom We’re not asking for a crown We’re asking you to listen So turn the fucking water down [Final Chorus — Voice 1 anguished melody, Voice 2 forceful responses; full beat] Turn down the waterfall We can’t hear each other call There’s a world beneath the water And it’s disappearing in the fall Turn down the waterfall Let the voices make it through We don’t need another million songs We need a few that tell the truth [Outro — drums and bass abruptly stop; water noise fades completely; one dry guitar note] [Voice 1 — spoken, close microphone] Can you hear us now? [Silence]
