THE MACHINE LEARNS HUNGER

[Intro: distant wind, faint radio static, one military snare]

[Old Radio Voice]
For security.
For honor.
For peace.

[Pause]

[Low Piano]

[Whispered Choir]
They always say peace.

[Verse 1: sparse piano, restrained vocal]

A mother folds a uniform
And smooths the shoulders twice
A father says, “Come home again”
As if the words were dice

A train pulls out beneath the flags
The brass band plays too loud
Young faces disappear behind
A cheering, waving crowd

They’ve drawn the maps
They’ve named the threat
They’ve told us what is true

The enemy is monstrous
And the righteous side is you

[Backing Vocals, distant]
March
March
March

[Lead]
Nobody photographs the future
When the banners still look new

[Pre-Chorus: low strings rising]

First comes the speech
Then comes the drum
Then every complicated question
Gets reduced to who must run

Who must kill
Who must die
Who deserves the burning sky

[Chorus: massive, slow]

WAR MAKES GRAVES
AND GRAVES MAKE GHOSTS

GHOSTS MAKE STORIES
WE REMEMBER MOST

A child beneath the rubble
Learns a name to blame

Twenty years from now
We act surprised
When he remembers all the same

WAR BEGETS WAR
WHEN PAIN BECOMES INHERITED

Every bomb can build tomorrow’s enemy
Before tomorrow has begun

[Instrumental: artillery-like drums, low brass]

[Verse 2: marching rhythm]

The first explosion has no politics
To the body underneath

It doesn’t ask your ideology
Before it steals your teeth

A hospital without a ceiling
A school without a wall
A wedding photograph beneath
The concrete in the hall

Somebody screams for water
Somebody calls a name
Somebody wakes tomorrow
And will never be the same

[Backing Choir]
Collateral
Collateral
Collateral

[Lead, bitterly]
A tidy word
For someone else’s dead

A clean abstraction
Spoken far away
From where the children bled

[Pre-Chorus]

Every side has photographs
They never will forget

Every side has funerals
That turn sorrow into debt

Every side can point behind
And say, “Look what they did”

And every generation learns
The reasons it was given

[Chorus]

WAR MAKES GRAVES
AND GRAVES MAKE GHOSTS

GHOSTS MAKE STORIES
WE REMEMBER MOST

A daughter sees her father’s coat
Still hanging by the door

Tell her twenty years from now
That vengeance doesn’t matter anymore

WAR BEGETS WAR
WHEN MEMORY BECOMES A WEAPON

Yesterday keeps loading rifles
For a battle still unborn

[Break: silence, distant ringing]

[Spoken Vocal]

A missile doesn’t only destroy a building.

It creates a witness.

A witness becomes a memory.

A memory becomes a story.

A story becomes identity.

Identity becomes grievance.

Grievance waits.

[Low drum]

Sometimes for decades.

[Verse 3: industrial rhythm begins]

Then factories learn the rhythm
Of the contracts and demand

Machines designed for killing
Become payroll across the land

A senator finds jobs
Inside another fighter wing

A district needs the spending
So the assembly lines can sing

An engineer has children
A machinist has a home
A company has forecasts
That assume the weapons flow

And suddenly the question
Isn’t only, “Should we fight?”

It’s also what goes dark
If peace arrives tomorrow night

[Backing Vocals, mechanical]
Payroll
Contract
Quarter
Growth

[Lead]
The machine learns hunger
And the hunger learns to vote

[Pre-Chorus: percussion becomes factory-like]

When livelihoods depend
On building instruments of war

Peace becomes disruptive
To the balance sheet and floor

New threats keep budgets growing
Old threats keep programs alive

And someone somewhere always benefits
If fear survives

[Chorus: harsher]

THE MACHINE LEARNS HUNGER
THE MACHINE MUST EAT

IT NEEDS ANOTHER ENEMY
TO JUSTIFY THE FLEET

Another generation
Another procurement plan

Another map explaining
Why the danger’s close at hand

WAR FEEDS WAR
WHEN WAR BECOMES AN INDUSTRY

And industries don’t wake one morning
Dreaming how to disappear

[Instrumental Break: mechanical synth, snare, distorted guitar]

[Verse 4: faster spoken-sung cadence]

Build a base
Build another
Ship the weapons
Choose a brother

Fund a faction
Train a force
Change the government
Change the course

Today’s ally
Tomorrow’s threat
Yesterday’s weapon
We haven’t forgotten yet

Arm them now
Because we need them
Fight them later
When we fear them

[Backing Vocals]
Again
Again
Again
Again

[Lead]
The future enemy
May already know our guns

Because somebody once decided
He was useful to someone

[Music abruptly drops]

And every intervention
Leaves something unresolved

A border
A militia
A vacuum
A grievance

A weapon
A debt
A promise
A corpse

[Drums return]

Then years later
We call the consequence
A crisis without cause

[Chorus]

WAR MAKES ENEMIES
ENEMIES MAKE FEAR

FEAR MAKES BUDGETS
THAT RETURN EVERY YEAR

Yesterday’s solution
Can become tomorrow’s war

And every door we kick apart
Can build another locked door

WAR BEGETS WAR
WHEN POWER HAS NO MEMORY

We keep planting fields of anger
Then act shocked by what they grow

[Bridge: mournful strings, no