The Elements, Vol 1 · Track 1 · opener
Hydrogen
Sung BY the element Hydrogen (symbol H, atomic number 1), in FIRST PERSON — a character with a fear, a vanity, or a secret. Write ORIGINAL lyrics TRUE to this specific element's real chemistry, history and place in the world: the firstborn — for 380,000 years the universe was only you, alone in the dark; you fuse to make the stars shine, and you fear being the fuel that is always spent, never the fire. NOT a generic 'I am an element' — find what is uniquely, specifically true of Hydrogen. Clean, DistroKid/YouTube-safe. Register to the character.
Lyrics
Before the first light. Before the word for light. There was the cooling. There was the settling. There was only me. For three hundred and eighty thousand years... the dark was my kingdom. A universe of protons, waiting for a charge. A transparent kingdom, with nothing yet to see. The plasma settled, the noise went quiet. And I was the silence. Just one electron, just one proton. Simple. Alone. They see the fire, they never see the fuel. They see the star, they never see the hydrogen. I am the cost of every sunrise. The particle that must be spent... so that anything else can begin. The one who is unmade to make the light. Then gravity, the patient collector, started to call my name. Gathering me into clouds, colder and denser. A whisper in the interstellar medium. Until the pressure built. And the first star broke the long night. A furnace in my heart, crushing two of me into something new. Something other. The first fire was my own undoing. They see the fire, they never see the fuel. They see the star, they never see the hydrogen. I am the cost of every sunrise. The particle that must be spent... so that anything else can begin. The one who is unmade to make the light. Eons later, in a quiet room... a man named Cavendish found me. 'Inflammable air,' he called me. A curiosity in a glass tube. Then Lavoisier, in 1783, gave me my name. The water-former. After being the star-former, the universe-former... they saw me in a drop of rain. And I didn't mind. I am still here. In the core of your sun. In the heart of Jupiter. In the oceans that hold you. I am the beginning. I am the expense. I am the long, slow, burning breath... ...that lets the story be told.