I mean, the doctor says the rhythm is steady. Perfectly functional. But you look at the face in the glass and you wonder... is there anyone left behind the valve? Or is it just the plumbing?

The ticker counts the seconds of a borrowed afternoon
While the landlord in the counting house hums a leaden tune
A rhythmic thud against the ribs, a piston in the chest
Just a biological remainder of a life we once possessed
The wallpaper is peeling in the hallway of the mind
Where the empathetic impulses are increasingly hard to find

Oh, the arrhythmia of the masses, the bypass of the truth
We’ve traded in the passion for a systematic proof
Just a metronome of the mundane, marking out the cost
Of every tiny fragment of the mercy that we lost

(Vocalisation: Ooh-wa-ooh, distorted and pained)
Tear the zinc from the ceiling
Grease the gears of the feeling
It’s a cold, metallic clicking where the kindness used to sit
In the ledger of the living, you’re just another deficit
Are you still alive inside?
Or did the empathy just slide?

The bleeding tickers line the street, looking for a hand
But the bypass was successful and we’ve cleared the vacant land
A copper-plated lubricant for the grinding of the day
While the biological components slowly rot away
Keep the pressure in the copper, keep the fluid in the line
Everything is functional, everything is fine

Oh, the arrhythmia of the masses, the bypass of the truth
We’ve traded in the passion for a systematic proof
Just a metronome of the mundane, marking out the cost
Of every tiny fragment of the mercy that we lost

(Vocalisation: Woah-oh-oh, fading into a hum)
Just a pump.
Just a gear.
Is there anybody home?