[Intro - slow bass pulse, vinyl crackle, distant radio preacher]
Five thousand men on a hillside fed
Loaves and fishes, that's what he said
First fish burger, mass-produced grace
Before the theorists deconstructed the place
[Verse 1 - half-spoken, trip-hop groove]
Now the commentator leans in with a knowing aside
"Five thousand men — and the women they hide"
But "men" meant "people" in the old King James
Before the castle builders came to rename the game
They built a fortress on the hill of discourse
Manned the ramparts with a critical force
Every word you speak must pass through their gate
Define yourself wrong and they'll calibrate your fate
[Pre-Chorus - beat firms up]
Sun Tzu on the hilltop, campus on the plain
Field of battle, field of study — same terrain
You approach with your hands up, speaking plain
They fire back: "Fascist" — and you're down again
[Chorus - full groove, defiant]
Colossus of Words, straddling the harbour mouth
Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out
Colossus of Words, deranged and tall
Good luck getting past with your meaning at all
[Verse 2 - spoken/sung, sardonic]
Frankfurt thirty-three, Gramsci in a cell
Building tools to crack the ideological shell
Foucault in the sixties, Derrida with a knife
Cutting every certainty out of public life
Noble work when tyrants held the pen
But the liberators locked the lexicon again
Hegemony of hermeneutics, tower of the sign
The bastard child grew up and drew the party line
[Chorus]
Colossus of Words, straddling the harbour mouth
Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out
Colossus of Words, a dagger on its point
One gust of sincerity — snap goes the joint
[Bridge - half-time, reflective, bass drops out]
She wears a t-shirt: "Consume Less" — nice
Flies to Europe, gives the same advice
Collapse is coming, she says from her phone
Bad faith airlines, business class to Rome
Sartre called it, existential dodge
Living in the castle while you preach from the lodge
But here's the thing about a colossus made of words:
It's hollow at the centre — haven't you heard?
[Verse 3 - proto-rap, building energy]
They'll call you right-wing if you question the frame
White supremacist, fascist — it's all the same
Wrongthink, crimethink, Orwell '84
The vocabulary's captured, there's a lock on the door
But a word is a word is a sound in the air
It belonged to the people before the theorists got there
You can't build a prison from adjectives and shame
When a man on a hillside fed five thousand — no one asked their name
[Final Chorus - full energy, all in]
Colossus of Words, I can see through your legs
Rhodes fell to an earthquake, you'll fall to what's said
Colossus of Words, your feet are made of clay
One sincere sentence and you'll crumble away
[Outro - beat strips back, spoken word over drone]
Oscillate
Between the known and the guess
The message is the meaning
And the meaning is: say less
Build more
Deconstruct your own throne
The first fish burger was a miracle
And it fed everyone
[Fade Out]