The Elements, Vol 1 · Track 10 · middle
Mercury
Sung BY the element Mercury (symbol Hg, atomic number 80), 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 only metal that runs like water, the trickster you cannot hold; you drove the hatters mad, you climb the thermometer, you are quicksilver and quiet poison — beautiful, liquid, and slowly lethal. NOT a generic 'I am an element' — find what is uniquely, specifically true of Mercury. Clean, DistroKid/YouTube-safe. Register to the character.
Lyrics
They call me quicksilver. Hydrargyros. Water-silver. Try to hold me in your palm. I am already gone. I painted the lips of queens in 3000 BCE. A beautiful red secret, from the cinnabar seams. Paracelsus dreamed of me in 1493. One of his three primes, the key to mastery. Newton breathed my vapor, chasing the final stone. He mapped the heavens, but I unmade his own. I run through your fingers, a heavy, silver lie. I climb in the glass to tell you when you'll die. I am the shimmer, the beautiful mistake. I am the tremor, the mind you watch me break. I am the river in the emperor's tomb. A liquid promise, a quiet, growing doom. They fed me to the beaver felt, in the factories dark and grim. The hatters danced a shaking jig, out on a fevered limb. Their hands would tremble, their tempers turn to rage. A famous madness for a new industrial age. They wrote a story about it in 1865. But I was the author, keeping the dread alive. I run through your fingers, a heavy, silver lie. I climb in the glass to tell you when you'll die. I am the shimmer, the beautiful mistake. I am the tremor, the mind you watch me break. I am the river in the emperor's tomb. A liquid promise, a quiet, growing doom. Show me your gold ring. That perfect, solid band. A little touch is all it takes. It crumbles in your hand. I eat the precious things. I amalgamate the soul. I make the solid brittle. I take my patient toll. I am the bead of metal. That rolls across the floor. You think you've cleaned it up. But I'm still by the door. I am the vapor rising. You'll breathe me soon. Quicksilver.