Returning to You

Verse 1

We found the ship beneath the garden,

Sleeping in the silver rain.

Its windows held a thousand mornings,

Every one of them your face.

The engines whispered through the flowers,

Calling planets by their names.

You drew a door across the starlight,

I stepped through and lost my age.

Pre-Chorus

And all the streets below grew smaller,

Blue and golden, far away.

You said, "The past is just a signal

That the future couldn't save."

Chorus

Take me where the old dreams go,

Past the moon and through the snow.

If we disappear tonight,

Leave our shadows burning bright.

We were young beneath the weather,

We were almost something true.

In a spaceship made of memory,

I am still returning to you.

Vocoder harmonies echo the final line:

"Returning... returning... to you..."

Verse 2

The zurna cried above the rooftops,

Like a bird from another world.

There were oceans on the ceiling,

There were diamonds in the walls.

Your keytar painted green horizons,

Neon rivers through the dark.

I heard choirs in the wiring,

Singing softly through the sparks.

The esraj bowed beneath the silence,

And the stars began to sway.

Every note became a doorway,

Every doorway led away.

Building Pre-Chorus

Now the satellites are sleeping,

Now the constellations bend.

I can feel the ship ascending,

I can feel the signal end.

You were reaching for the future,

I was reaching for your hand.

But the distance grew like water

Through the metal of the land.

Chorus

Take me where the old dreams go,

Past the moon and through the snow.

If we disappear tonight,

Leave our shadows burning bright.

We were young beneath the weather,

We were almost something true.

In a spaceship made of memory,

I am still returning to you.

Chamberlin choir answers:

"Still returning..."

"Still returning..."

Bridge

We passed the planet's sleeping shoulder,

Saw our childhood in the clouds.

There was music in the vacuum,

There were crowds without a sound.

I asked you if we'd ever landed.

You said, "Landing isn't why

We built a vessel out of longing—

We built it just to say goodbye."

And somewhere past the edge of language,

Where the radio turns blue,

Your voice became a constellation

I could never travel through.

Final Pre-Chorus

So raise the sails of solar fire,

Let the broken star-map bloom.

There is no returning backward—

Only farther into blue.

If this is all that we were given,

If the signal fades from view,

I will keep the engines singing

With the last words I had for you.

Climactic Final Chorus

Take me where the old dreams go,

Past the moon and through the snow.

If we disappear tonight,

Leave our shadows burning bright.

We were young beneath the weather,

We were almost something true.

In a spaceship made of memory,

I am still returning to you.

Take me where the lost stars sleep,

Through the worlds beneath the deep.

Even when the heavens close,

I will follow where your echo goes.

We were more than dust and weather,

More than anything we knew.

In a spaceship made of memory,

I am still returning—

Still returning—

Still returning—

Still returning to you.

Outro

-The beat falls away. Mandolin tremolo slows into isolated notes. Uilleann pipes hold one fragile tone while vocoder harmonies repeat the chorus title-

"The spaceship remembered..."

"The spaceship remembered..."

"The spaceship remembered us..."

-A final tape-warped Mellotron chord dissolves into plate reverb and stereo delay.-