[Intro - distant ventilation, slow electrical pulse. Ironic but never comic; comprehensible line by line, inscrutable as a whole.]
The servers hum beneath the town.
(The moon is wearing someone’s crown.)
A kettle trembles in the dark.
(A turtle flies beside the shark)

[Verse 1]
Flying around like a turtle,
Flapping my wings in the sky,
I walked through the broccoli forest
And saw the world in my eye.

Everyone knows the answer.
Nobody knows the reason why.
The clouds were shaped like questions.
The questions were learning to fly.

[Pre-Chorus. Begin sparse and uncanny, then build toward immense choruses without becoming sentimental]
Every step that I take
Is one less I have to make.
Every promise that I break
Leaves a ripple on the lake.

[Chorus]
In the museum of my mind,
Every painting’s fake.
Every step that I take
Is one less I have to make.

I stand upon my hind legs,
Waving my arms about.
I do not know why I like it.
I do not know why I shout. (doubt) (trout)

Everyone knows the answer.
Nobody knows the reason why.
Flying around like a turtle,
Flapping my wings in the sky.

[Verse 2 - heavier pulse, duet]
The person who first made butter
Must have woken from a dream,
With thunder inside the churn-house
And gold collecting in the cream.

They carried it into daylight.
They placed it upon the bread.
No scripture explained the meaning.
No witness remembered the dead.

When there is work to be done,
What happens to the fun?
Does it hide inside the engine?
Does it wait behind the sun?

I found it beneath the floorboards,
Packed in a suitcase of heat,
Along with a map of the future
And one left-handed receipt.

[Pre-Chorus]
Every road that I forsake
Is another road I make.

Every fact that I awake
Starts to shiver, starts to shake.

[Chorus. awkward Phrygian key, slightly sharp]
In the museum of my mind,
Every painting’s fake.
Every step that I take
Is one less I have to make.

I stand upon my hind legs,
Waving my arms about.
I do not know why I like it.
I do not know why I shout.

Everyone knows the answer.
Nobody knows the reason why.
Flying around like a turtle,
Flapping my wings in the sky.

[Bridge - machinery enters, vocals close and severe]
Almost every watt becomes heat.
Nothing vanishes.
Nothing retreats.

The servers think beneath the street.
The apartments sleep above.

Inference enters through the wires.
Winter gathers what remains.
The radiators learn our questions.
The windows answer them with rain.

From circuit to pipe,
From pipe into stone,
The waste heat climbs
And discovers a home.

We asked the machine for meaning.
It warmed the room instead.

[spoken]
This was not the answer. (answer)

[low chorus]
But it was not nothing. (no thing)

[Instrumental Break - enormous arpeggiator ascent, turbine rhythm, abrupt silence]

[Verse 3 - sparse, almost ceremonial]
The broccoli trees were listening.
The porridge had nothing to say.
The butter remembered the dreamer.
The turtle remembered the way.

Every conclusion was certain.
Every foundation was air.
We built a machine for the future
But we were already there.

Not in the mouth of the oracle.
Not in the eye of the sky.
But humming beneath the pavement,
Too warm to explain itself why.

[Final Chorus - vast, controlled, no triumphal modulation]
In the museum of my mind,
Every painting’s fake.
Every step that I take
Is one less I have to make.

I stand upon my hind legs,
Waving my arms about.
I still do not know why I like it.
I still do not know why I shout.

When there is work to be done,
What happens to the fun?
It passes through the heat exchangers
And rises with the sun.

Everyone knows the answer.
Nobody knows the reason why.
Flying around like a turtle,
Flapping my wings in the sky.

[Outro - drums fall away, server hum remains]
The servers hum beneath the town.
The moon has set its burden down.
(inference)
(inference)
The turtle folds its borrowed wings.
The radiator softly sings.
(inference)

Every step that I take
Is one less I have to fake.