Capgras

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a music box — playing a lullaby you know, but one note is wrong)
(harpsichord enters — cold, baroque, precise)
(the wrongness is small but it infects everything)

[Verse 1]
(NORMAL + IDLEWILD)
She is sitting in the kitchen
In the same chair
In the same light
Wearing the same cardigan
That smells like Tuesday evenings
And the particular brand of soap
That the 1930s never quite relinquished

And the fusiform gyrus says: yes
That is her face
The measurements are correct
The distance between the eyes
Is filed and verified

But the amygdala says: no
Something is missing
The emotional watermark is gone
The face has been reprinted
On paper that doesn't hold the ink
The way the original did

[Pre-Chorus]
(TYPHON + SIGH)
This is a corridor
Where the walls are made of recognition
And the floor is made of nothing
And you are walking toward someone
Whose face is a certificate of authenticity
For a feeling
That has vacated the premises
And left the heating on

[Chorus]
(building — strings tighten, the uncanny deepening)
Capgras, Capgras
The face is right and the feeling is wrong
Capgras, Capgras
She looks like my mother
She wears my mother's song
But the wire between the seeing
And the knowing has been cut
And the knowing
Is a locked room
With my mother's coat still on the hook
And nobody home
And the door
Doesn't shut

[Verse 2]
(ATA + TYPHON)
The fusiform gyrus is a passport office
Verifying the geometry of the beloved
And the amygdala is the customs agent
Who waves you through
Based on a feeling
That the passport doesn't contain

And in Capgras
The passport is perfect
And the customs agent is dead
And you are admitted to a country
Where everything is identical
And nothing
Is the same

The bathtub overflows
Not with water
But with the heavy cold weight
Of being held
By arms that have the right measurements
And the wrong temperature

[Chorus]
Capgras, Capgras
The face is right and the feeling is wrong
Capgras, Capgras
She looks like my mother
She wears my mother's song
But the wire between the seeing
And the knowing has been cut
And the knowing
Is a locked room
With my mother's coat still on the hook
And nobody home

[Bridge]
(everything drops — just voice and the wrong music box)
(SIGH + IDLEWILD)
There is a tincture for this
In no apothecary I have found
It would taste like the feeling
Of a key that fits the lock
But opens onto a room
That has been emptied
By someone wearing gloves

(the music box stops — silence)

The cruelest thing about Capgras
Is not that the stranger replaced your mother
It's that your mother
Is sitting right there
Being your mother
Perfectly
And the only thing that's broken
Is the part of you
That was supposed to feel it

And the part that's broken
Is so small
That no scan can find it
Just a wire
Between the face
And the warmth
A wire the width
Of a feeling
And the feeling
Is the only thing
That made the face
A home

[Outro]
(the music box returns — the same lullaby, the wrong note still there)
Capgras
(whispered, devastated, still)
She's right there
She's right there
And I can see her
And I can't
(harpsichord — one cold chord)
(the wrong note rings — and holds — and fades)