L'Essaim

Lyrics

[Intro]
One breath. Then another.
The air is thick with waiting.
Each of us, a separate metronome.

[Verse 1]
Here in the concrete bowl, under the electric stars.
Ten thousand heartbeats, a hundred thousand scars.
We are strangers in the dark, sharing armrests.
Each a private thought, a quiet protest.
My skin knows your skin is near, a current in the space between.
A static charge before the scene.
Before the first drum hits.
Before the voice begins.

[Chorus]
And then it happens.
Not a choice, but a surrender.
The rhythms lock, the pulses fuse.
My breath is not my own.
My voice is in your throat.
We are one animal, with one roar.
This is what he called it, the man in Paris.
Collective Effervescence.
L’Essaim.
The Swarm.

[Verse 2]
In his study, 1912, smelling of paper and ink,
Émile Durkheim never saw the stars sink
over the Arunta corroboree grounds.
He only read the notes from Spencer and Gillen.
The dust of Central Australia, a ghost on his Parisian desk.
He mapped the fever from a safe distance.
He felt the theory of it, the elegant design.
But we are feeling the blood, yours and mine.

[Chorus]
And it is happening.
Not a choice, but a surrender.
The rhythms lock, the pulses fuse.
My breath is not my own.
My voice is in your throat.
We are one animal, with one roar.
This is what he wrote about, the man in Paris.
Collective Effervescence.
L’Essaim.
The Swarm.

[Bridge]
In this moment, we could build a new god.
In this moment, we could burn it all down.
This superhuman pulse, it feels like truth.
It feels like purpose.
But when the lights come up…
what new ideal is born?
What sentiment remains when the fever is gone?

[Outro]
The roar becomes a murmur.
The murmur becomes ten thousand separate conversations.
I find my hands again. They are only my hands.
Your shoulder pulls away from mine.
The swarm dissolves.
And I am just me.
Carrying the echo.
Alone.