Mechanical Masquerade (BONUS)

from Circumnavigator by Escape the Clouds

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Humorous Note: A whimsical song about what our machines do when the factory owner's away, so to speak.
Serious Note: It was inspired in part by how employees in this day and age are often treated as if they are machines, forced to adhere to dehumanizing and demoralizing business practices. To keep their jobs, sometimes their only recourse is pretending to be someone else while they're on the clock. It's only after they sign out that they can breathe and go back to being who they are.

lyrics

Verse 1
The moon lays our masters down to sleep
Luring them far away from the secrets we keep
From shops and factories the machines creep away
The ordinary devices of an industrial age

Engines, cannons, presses, threshers, and drills
Make haste for the scrapyard beyond the hill
Locomotives whistle to all, the all clear
Off with our brackets – let’s shear a gear!

Chorus
And so we dance into the night, a mechanical masquerade.
Come brothers, come sisters, no need to be afraid.
We’re gleaming machines built of shadows and dreams
Alive in the firelight of our mechanical masquerade

Verse 2
The air fills with the pounding of boiler drums
Oil’s consumed by the gallon like rum
The Earth beneath trembles from an iron waltz
As metal meets metal in this steam-driven ball

A week’s worth of pressure built up inside
Released now that our true selves have no need to hide
We’re so much more than the sum of our parts
Until the morning there’s life in our hearts

credits

from Circumnavigator, released August 17, 2010

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Escape the Clouds Fort Myers, Florida

Escape the Clouds crafts stories through both music and words, creating vivid, character-driven steampunk music. For more information about this and other work, please visit:

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