The Protomen - How the World Fell Under Darkness lyrics

The movement started slowly at first
But soon expanded exponentially into
Every part of
Life the old commuter train that
Bore Light to his exile was bought
And the track scrapped and
Recycled to make way for a shining
Electromagnetic bullet train sleek
And silver, it tore through
The city like a volt across a wire
And as quickly as it moved
The city was transformed around it
Beneath the hammers of Wily's
New army of metal
Workmen, buildings were razed to the ground
Leveled in a single morning new foundations
Were laid in the
Same afternoon structures, metal frames
Piercing the clouds
Were erected before nightfall glass and
Steel wrapped the frames


Before the sun rose the next day then
The armies of machines would
Move onto the next task never stopping never
Slowing never resting

Morning after morning
The men and women of the city awoke to
Find a bright new world everything was remade
Made better made brighter the streets
Were swept the undesirables
The homeless, the criminal element
Of the city, systematically vanished

The single screen on top of the
Tower sent out signals to the
Now hundreds of satellite
Screens the factories
Were fully automated the mines
Run entirely by machine the men that
Found themselves suddenly living lives of
Leisure crowded the bars, slowly imbibing
The generous severances they'd received
Not so much as a single ill
Word grumbled towards their replacements the
City was a bright and shining beacon
Of light a steel-plated heaven years passed

A generation grew up within the metal
Arms that embraced the city
The older generations never told them
What the city looked
Like before the machines why would
They? What good could come
From telling the children of the
Type of dark, filthy, and dangerous world
That men create when left to
Their own devices? That
Once men slaved away deep inside the earth
Risking death for the sake
Of survival that once women
Left their children, still asleep in
Their beds, to grind away mindless
Hours in the factories
Sacrificing family to secure necessities

This new world was so perfect
That it seemed dangerous to
Speak of the old world as if this new city
Sprung from a sea of
Darkness, was balanced on a single point
Teetering on a crucial ignorance it
Seemed that any misstep, any wrong
Word, could topple the city
Sinking it back in
The sea, that dark abyss of human suffering
Leaving them with nothing after all
They were not the creators of this
World they were merely the recipients
Of a gift a gift given to
Them by a single man and
His countless steel hands and just as
Easily as it was given
Couldn't it be taken away?

An unspoken fear dangled above the
Heads of every man
And woman keeping them silent
Keeping them safe

Even so
Rumors started ghost stories of a demon a
Beast with a single red eye
He that would pluck you from your
Bed at night if you
Were found with a dissenting word on your
Tongue mothers told children to stay
Close as they traveled through the streets
Keep a smile on their faces
And never speak ill of the machines

A generation grew up inside the metal
Hands that gently circled the neck
Of the city some of them
Grew up hating the city
Fearing the machines there was one boy
In particular his name was Joe