Alone New Yorker bedroom art-pop · nyc / nowhere
official release / transmission

I kept the world on mute

An official Alone New Yorker release, preserved in the signal archive with credits, lyrics and listening links.

Single
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Artwork for I kept the world on mute
official credits

Credits

Composition
Benjamin Decraene
Production
Alone New Yorker
Engineering
Alone New Yorker
words / original language

Lyrics

English

I kept the world on mute for years, let the headlines drown in dust

Let the birthdays pass like static on a screen I didn't trust

I grew older in a corner with a notebook and a hum

While my friends became their faces, I became what I'd become

Every chord a small refusal, every line a softer no

To the version they expected, with the volume set to glow

So I sang where no one listens, in a key that hurt the air

Too high for their attention, too thin for them to bear

If the planet spins without me, let it spin, I'll stay right here

I kept the world on mute 'till only music could appear

There's a jacket on my chair from a party I left early

Like a ghost that never asked why I disappear so surely

I replay the same four seconds, of a demo no one knows

It's the happiest I sounded, but the saddest that I chose

Every echo feels like proof that I once was in the room

Even if my body failed to survive their noisy bloom

So I sang where no one listens, in a pitch that bends the light

Thin as ice on tired rivers, cracking softly through the night

If the planet spins without me, let it spin, I'll stay right here

I kept the world on mute 'till only music could appear

Maybe someday some kid scrolling, past the border of their sleep

Hears a voice that sounds like drowning and decides they want to keep

Just a fragment of this fracture, just a shimmer of this ache

Like a note inside their pocket saying, you're not a mistake

So I'll sing where no one listens, in a range that feels unreal

Let the beauty cut too sharply to be background, to be chilled

If the planet spins without me, it can spin, I'll stay in tune

I kept the world on mute and built an endless fragile room