UNDERWATER

[INTRO — Intimate fingerpicked guitar, single notes, warm and unpolished. Distant ambient swells creep in beneath. Filtered pads enter slowly, low-passed, opening into a wide stereo field by bar six. No drums. No rush. A female vocal chop "oh" — pitched soft, reversed at the edges, dissolves before it lands.] [VERSE — Vocals breathy and close. Guitar holds steady beneath. Soft kick enters, pillowy. Bright plucks pepper the high end, sparse.] I folded all your shirts And put them in a box I told myself it was just space But space is all I've got I watered all your plants Until they didn't need me Then I sat inside the quiet And let the quiet read me [Risers thread in underneath. Bright plucks grow faster, arpeggiated. Tension coils upward. A snare roll ghosts across the stereo field.] [PRE-CHORUS — Harmonies bloom in thirds above the lead. Supersaws breathe at the edge, not yet formed. Sidechain begins its pulse. Snare roll tightens. A chopped cry texture flickers left to right — pitched high, fragmented, barely human.] So hold me under Let it take whatever's left I've been half-alive so long I've forgotten how to breath [The word "breathe" bends down, stretches, then snaps. One beat of silence. The drop opens the floor.] [DROP — Detuned supersaws, full width, massive. Growling bass swerves on every downbeat, formant-shifted and wide. 808 on the one and three, felt before heard. Tight sidechain pumping — every kick swallows the saws for a breath. Chopped and pitched screams scattered as texture, sliced to sixteenth notes, bleeding across the stereo field. Vocal chop melody built from the lead — four notes, descending, looping with yearning. Half-time energy. Enormous weight.] We were paper lungs Breathing underwater We were doing fine Until we weren't We held the air in Held each other's silence We held on so long We both got burned We were paper lungs Too soft for the fire We were everything Until the end Now I breathe alone In a room that remembers Every shape you left Beneath my skin [The bass drops out. Three beats of pure sub. Then a single supersaw chord blooms back in — long, resolving into the second half.] [VERSE 2 — Guitar returns with delay trails, wider and more distant. Vocals more exposed, slightly raw. High-register glitchy vocal chops echo each phrase back — a half-beat late, a half-step off, like a mirror that doesn't match.] I kept the side you slept on Cold and clean and yours [Glitchy chop answer: "y-yours — yours — yours"] I kept the argument we never Finished at the door [Glitchy chop answer: "the door — d-d-door — door"] I kept the way you laughed Before you learned to hide it [Glitchy chop answer: "hide it — h-hide — hide"] I kept everything Except the will to fight it [Higher-register harmonies stack — a fifth above the lead, then an octave. The air thickens. Risers climb. Cry textures re-enter, this time pitched melodically, breathing with the sidechain.] [PRE-CHORUS — Three vocal layers now. Lead, alto beneath, whispered double below that. Supersaws threatening at the edge. Snare roll doubles in intensity. Chopped cry textures scatter like static.] So hold me under Let the water fill the shape Of every word I swallowed Every time I looked away ["Away" — pitch drop. Long. Slow. A world tilting sideways. Then silence. One full bar. Then the final drop erupts.] [FINAL DROP — Everything from the first drop, wider and higher. Orchestral string stab on the one. Higher-register harmonies woven into the supersaw layer — voice pitched into the chords. Glitchy vocal chops answer the lead in full call-and-response, now musical, ascending and descending in counterpoint. Bass swerves harder, modulation pushed to the edge of dissonance. Cry textures layered three deep — low, mid, high — breathing with the sidechain pump. Vocal chop melody expands to six notes. Bar sixteen: density doubles. Every frequency filled. Then a half-bar silence. Then one final chord — held.] We were paper lungs Breathing underwater We were doing fine Until we weren't We held the air in Held each other's silence We held on so long We both got burned We were paper lungs Too soft for the fire We were everything Until the end Now I just breathe slow In a room that still remembers Paper lungs... [Everything cuts. Silence. Four full beats. Nothing.] ...still breathing [A single guitar note. Then the outro.] [OUTRO — Fingerpicked guitar returns alone, same melody as the intro, slower now. Ambient swells re-enter, richer and warmer than before. Filtered pad fades in from the left, blooming gently into the stereo field. A whispered vocal chop of "still" loops — each repeat further away, more reverb, dissolving. Guitar phrase slows. One note held. Reverb tail extends long into silence. Then the pad fades. Then the guitar fades. Then just air. Then nothing.]