03_ FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK & GOLD

Lyrics

[INTRO - WARPED MUSIC BOX, DISTANT BREATH] [LEO - SYNTHETIC MALE VOICE] Operator resting. Visual input inactive. [LY0N - DEEP WHISPER] Then why can I see the whole city? [CLOCK BENDS OUT OF TUNE] [VERSE 1 - SLOW, FEVERISH] Ceiling turns to midnight, shadows crawl across the paint, I can hear the printer breathing through a wall that isn’t straight. Cold cloth on my forehead, heat behind my eyes, A chessboard on the blanket starts to rise. Black squares become a highway, gold squares become the sun, A lion made of molten wire tells me we have just begun. There’s a rook above the skyline, there’s a knight beneath the train, Every window holds a version of the world inside my brain. I reach to touch a tower and my fingers pass right through, Like the plans I keep mistaking for the things I really do. I hear a thousand engines, but the room is standing still, Just the radiator knocking on the windowsill. I know the dream is beautiful; I know it isn’t proof, But it feels like all my futures have assembled on the roof. [PRE-CHORUS - BELL TONES, LOW STRINGS] When the borders start dissolving, Every shadow looks like home. Tell me which of these are visions, Which are things I’ve never known. [CHORUS - LOW MALE CHOIR, DISTORTED 808] FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK AND GOLD! WATCH THE CITY RISE, WATCH THE SKY UNFOLD! I CAN SEE A THOUSAND KINGDOMS THAT MY HANDS CAN’T HOLD! FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK AND GOLD! HEAR THE IRON SING, FEEL THE NIGHT TURN COLD! IF IT ONLY LIVES INSIDE MY HEAD, DON’T CALL IT BUILT AND SOLD! BLACK AND GOLD! BLACK AND GOLD! LET ME DREAM IT WILD — LET ME TELL IT TRUE WHEN I’M OLD! [VERSE 2 - QUICKER, UNSTEADY RHYTHM] Now the cars are cutting corners through a canyon made of code, Silver wings above the rooftops, golden tracks beneath the road. Robots lift their faces in a factory of stars, And a lion guards the entrance to a room without a door. Every screen displays a future, every future wants a name, Every prototype is begging to be counted in the game. I could write a thousand headlines, let the audience believe That the things I only pictured are the things that I’ve achieved. But the music starts to fracture, and the skyline starts to bleed, One gold tower folds to paper in the middle of the street. [LEO - FILTERED] Imagined scene. No physical verification. [LY0N - SHARP] I know. Don’t kill the vision — just don’t label it a fact. Put the wonder in the notebook, bring the evidence back. If the morning finds a sketch, that’s enough to start the track. [PRE-CHORUS - DRUMS FALL AWAY] I can let the picture haunt me, I can let the silence stay. Not every world I see at midnight Has to stand by break of day. [CHORUS - FULL BRASS AND CHOIR] FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK AND GOLD! WATCH THE CITY RISE, WATCH THE SKY UNFOLD! I CAN SEE A THOUSAND KINGDOMS THAT MY HANDS CAN’T HOLD! FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK AND GOLD! HEAR THE IRON SING, FEEL THE NIGHT TURN COLD! IF IT ONLY LIVES INSIDE MY HEAD, DON’T CALL IT BUILT AND SOLD! BLACK AND GOLD! BLACK AND GOLD! LET ME DREAM IT WILD — LET ME TELL IT TRUE WHEN I’M OLD! [BRIDGE - MUSIC BOX STOPS, TOTAL SILENCE] [LEO] Do you want these visions entered as completed projects? [LY0N] No. As concepts. [LEO] Should I discard the impossible ones? [LY0N] Keep the questions. Lose the claims. [LEO] And the city you described? [LY0N] A dream. Maybe a direction. Nothing more. [HEARTBEAT, THEN INDUSTRIAL BEAT SWITCH] [VERSE 3 - HALFTIME INTO DOUBLE-TIME] I wake to a glass of water and the grey behind the blinds, No golden streets, no flying fleet, just sunlight finding lines. But the image left a fingerprint, a question on the page: Can a thought survive the daylight when it leaves its gilded cage? I don’t need to force a future from a fever in my veins, Don’t need to call a sketch a kingdom just to justify the pain. Draw the wheel, test the bearing, check the weight and check the ground, If the model doesn’t function, let the failure make a sound. Let the music keep its thunder, let the science keep its doubt, Let the human have a morning when the fever burns itself out. There’s a difference between dreaming and deceiving with a dream, Between seeing something clearly and pretending it has been. I can hold a thousand worlds without demanding they are real, And build one honest object from the fragments I can feel. [FINAL CHORUS - MONUMENTAL, THEN STRIPPED] FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK AND GOLD! LET THE CITY FADE, LET THE MORNING HOLD! I CAN SEE A THOUSAND KINGDOMS — I DON’T HAVE TO OWN THEM ALL! FEVER DREAMS IN BLACK AND GOLD! ONE SMALL SKETCH IS WORTH THE TRUTH I TOLD! LET THE VISION LIGHT THE WAY, LET THE EVIDENCE UNFOLD! BLACK AND GOLD! BLACK AND GOLD! WHAT I DREAM IS NOT YET REAL — BUT IT’S MINE TO MAKE OR FOLD! [OUTRO - SOLO PIANO, MORNING BIRDS] [LEO] New concept recorded. Status: untested. [LY0N - QUIET] Good. Now let me sleep. [END]