Need to Know

(Verse 1 – tight, staccato, low register)

You ask me how it’s going
I say “same as before”
Shake your hand like I don’t know
What you’re asking me for

Every sentence measured twice
Every breath on a wire
There’s a ledger in my head
And your name’s not required

⸻

(Pre-Chorus – rising tension, off-kilter accents)

Half-truth posture
Polite disguise
Friendly ghosts behind my eyes

Read me wrong
That’s by design
You get yours and I get mine

⸻

(Chorus – punchy, syncopated, hook with rhythmic stutter)

Loose lips—
(LOCK IT)
Sink ships—
(DROP IT)

Say less
Say less
Say less than you know

Dead calm—
(SHUT IT)
Stay gone—
(CUT IT)

Smile wide
Let it slide
Never let it show

(Need to know… you don’t)

⸻

(Verse 2 – slightly more open, still controlled, groove builds)

We talk about the weather
Like it’s all we’ve ever shared
But there’s a war behind the curtain
You were never meant to bear

You laugh, I match the cadence
Like we’re reading from a script
But I’m redacting every memory
Every truth I let you glimpse

⸻

(Pre-Chorus 2 – more urgent, layered vocals)

Friendly face
Compartmentalized
Truth in fragments, sterilized

You lean in
I lean away
Nothing slips if nothing stays

⸻

(Chorus – bigger, gang vox layered)

Loose lips—
(LOCK IT)
Sink ships—
(DROP IT)

Say less
Say less
Say less than you know

Dead calm—
(SHUT IT)
Stay gone—
(CUT IT)

Smile wide
Let it slide
Never let it show

(Need to know… you don’t)

⸻

(Bridge – atmospheric, odd time, spoken/whispered intercut with screams)

((5/4 → 7/8 shifting))

I could tell you everything
But everything’s a blade
Every word a fingerprint
Every kindness… trade

So I bury it alive
Under practiced replies
If you knew what I was holding
You’d stop looking in my eyes

⸻

(Breakdown – heavy djent, syncopated chugs, sparse vocals)

Say—less
Say—less

Cut the signal
Kill the line
Nothing here is yours or mine

Say—less
Say—less

If it lives
It stays below
Buried where it won’t be known

⸻

(Final Chorus – full force, layered harmonies + screams)

Loose lips—
(LOCK IT)
Sink ships—
(DROP IT)

Say less
Say less
Say less than you know

Dead calm—
(SHUT IT)
Stay gone—
(CUT IT)

Smile wide
Let it slide
Never let it show

(Need to know… you don’t)

⸻

(Outro – stripped, eerie clean guitar)

You ask, I smile
We both pretend

Some doors stay closed
Until the end

Prog djent alt metal, polyrhythmic riffs, tight chugs, whisper to scream dynamics, tense, secretive, 115 BPM, 4/4 w odd