# Quiet Engine
No
Keep all of it
Just move it
Kick on one
leave three empty
bass comes early
let it
Guitar late
good
stay filthy
don't repair the edge yet
Banjo high
cut it lower
make the dead string hit the snare
Synth is drifting
don't correct it
move the drums until it's there
Everybody wants the centre
that's exactly why it breaks
You don't fix a crowded signal
You decide what gets the space
Pull it back
Push it left
Kill the pretty
Keep the breath
One more bar
Don't explain
Now
let the ugly find the frame
Quiet engine
under the floor
You don't hear it
till you need one more
Quiet engine
turning below
Everything fighting
I make it go
Quiet engine
no spotlight glow
Nobody sees it
Everybody knows
Make it go
Make it go
Snare too clean
drag chain across it
piano bright
close the lid
Guitar wants eight more measures
tell the guitar no, it didn't
Take the chorus
lose the first beat
make the landing feel too soon
Put the tremolo against it
let the wrong note change the room
Cable hum in channel seven
that's our low drone now
Someone says the tempo's broken
Tempo isn't broken
You are counting it wrong
I don't need another layer
I need six things to agree
Not on what they're trying to say
On where they're gonna breathe
Quiet engine
under the floor
You don't hear it
till you need one more
Quiet engine
turning below
Everything fighting
I make it go
Quiet engine
no spotlight glow
Nobody sees it
Everybody knows
That's the mistake
Everybody thinks arrangement means adding
Sometimes arrangement is telling
five beautiful things
they cannot happen
at the same time
Again
Take the shine off
leave the scar
Move the silence
not the bar
Let the bass drag
let it lean
Build the dirt
into the machine
Now the kick knows where the floor is
now the banjo cuts the grid
now the synth can keep on drifting
because the rhythm learned to bend
Now the guitar stops competing
now the piano owns the gap
Now the bass can hit before it
and the whole thing pulls you back
Nothing here is perfect
that's the reason it can move
Perfect parts make perfect statues
I need something with a pulse
Let the drummer rush the turnaround
let the tape machine complain
Let the transient hit the ceiling
Let the circuitry feel pain
I don't want it clean
I want inevitable
I don't want impressive
I want physical
You can measure every frequency
Still miss why the thing survives
A quiet engine isn't silent
It's the reason noise arrives
Quiet engine
under the floor
You never saw it
now you want one more
Quiet engine
turning below
Everything fighting
I make it go
Quiet engine
hear the whole room lock
Banjo in the wiring
bass against the clock
Quiet engine
nothing standing still
I don't make it perfect
I make it
Real
Keep that