The Protomen - I: Hope Rides Alone lyrics

No one was left who could
Remember how it had happened
How the world had fallen under darkness
At least no one who would do anything
No one who would oppose the robots
No one who would challenge their power
Or so Dr wily believed

There is a skyline in the distance
A brilliant and bright city with
Building after building crowded into a
Dense and industrious center the
City is closer now rushing past the
Buildings to the base of
One crumbling high-rise the first story
Passes by the second now
And with more speed there is a blur
Of windows and brick eighteen nineteen

Twenty floors above the dark
Streets of the city


Dr light lived in a run down tenement
An eccentric and brilliant man
Light was a loner, a thinker, a man of ideas
Ideas forbidden in Wily's society
The society for which he worked
The society in which he lived
The society that he would set free
And so Light worked, far into the night
When the watchful eyes of Wily's
Robots weren't upon him
He'd set his skillful hands to the
Task of creating a device to
Bring about a change, to create
A machine to bring freedom
To create a man to save the world
Twelve years Light worked and on a
Cold night in the year 200X
Protoman was born
A perfect man, an unbeatable machine
Hell-bent on destroying every evil
Standing between man and
Freedom, built for one purpose
To destroy Wily's
Army of evil robots ready, willing
Prepared to fight

The streets, the arteries of this metropolis
Run with bodies
Crowding together, they flow out of the city
Toward a superstructure east of town a
Factory a fortress glancing at
It the facade resembles the face
Of a skeleton smoke pours
From the stacks high above the
Outer wall the gates are
Open a figure stands in the light before the
Entrance perfectly still
He wait's the crash of metal destroys
The silence one by one
The Robots step forward, step into the light

Cutman gutsman
Elecman bombman
Fireman iceman
Proto attack!

The violence is surreal metal against metal
The sound is deafening for most
The reaction is automatic hands cover ears
Mothers reach to cover eyes
Of terrified children the blows are
Quick and precise this
Is Protoman dealing death without remorse
Without hesitation, and still
The fight is unbalanced one against so
Many protoman fights without fear of defeat
Although it
Is inevitable the men keep their distance
Straining to see every crushing blow
Through the smoke that has
Surrounded the ongoing battle the
Din stops abruptly unsettlingly

And as the smoke cleared!
Wily rose above the
Countless robots remaining
Protoman was wounded, low on energy
Struggling to remain standing as Wily
Ordered the final attack
The death of Protoman

The crowd had gathered there
To watch him fall
To watch their hopes destroyed
They watched them beat him, they
Watched them break him
They watched his last defense deployed
There was not a man among them
Who would let himself be heard
But from the crowd, from
Their collective fear
Arose these broken words:

We are the dead we are the dead
What have we done? (We are the dead)
What will we do? (We are the dead)
Where will we turn? (We are the dead)
Is there nothing we can do? (We are the dead)
How did it come to this? (We are the dead)
How did we go so wrong? (We are the dead)
We are the dead (We are the dead)