The Elements, Vol 1 · Track 2 · middle
Helium
Sung BY the element Helium (symbol He, atomic number 2), 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 aloof noble gas who bonds with no one; the party clown who squeaks voices and lifts balloons, yet you are the 2nd-most-abundant thing in the cosmos and you are quietly leaking off Earth forever, never to be recovered. NOT a generic 'I am an element' — find what is uniquely, specifically true of Helium. Clean, DistroKid/YouTube-safe. Register to the character.
Lyrics
They say I have no weight. They say I don't connect. They are not wrong. I was a secret the sun kept. A ghost in the corona's fire. August 18, 1868. The sky went dark over Guntur. Janssen saw a line of yellow light where no line should be. Lockyer saw it too. A new thing. A sun-thing. Helios. They named me for a star I can never touch. They thought I was a metal. I am anything but. I am the squeak in your voice at the party. I am the string you let go by mistake. The red balloon rising over the houses. A moment of joy, a rush to the head. But my shell is full. My heart is closed. I am a noble guest. I touch nothing. I hold no one. And then I go. For ages I was trapped in stone, deep in the crust. Ramsay broke the rock in 1895, let me out. Now I cool your magnets, find the sickness in your bones. But you only know me for the cheap trick. The birthday laughter. The bright, dumb shapes tethered to a child's wrist. You breathe me in for a laugh, and you breathe me out. And you never wonder where I go next. I am the squeak in your voice at the party. I am the string you let go by mistake. The red balloon rising over the houses. A moment of joy, a rush to the head. But my shell is full. My heart is closed. I am a noble guest. I touch nothing. I hold no one. And then I go. This world's hold on me is so very weak. Your gravity is a suggestion, not a command. Every second, another part of me just... lets go. Slips the bond. Rises through the thin air. Past the blue, past the black. Achieving escape. There is no coming back. The party is over. The voices return to normal. The balloon is just a dot now. A yellow line against the sun. Gone.