Prove The Brake
Plays in the dock at the bottom of the page, so it keeps going while you read on.
Lyrics
The phone rang out, 'Please make it stop' (please make it stop)
Their side was filling drop by drop (drop by drop)
I wanted answers, wanted why (wanted why)
But first I checked the tap was dry (tap was dry)
So prove the brake (prove the brake)
Prove the brake, prove the brake
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Show 'em zeros, not a guess
Then go hunting for the mess
Prove the brake, prove the brake
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Stop the tap and prove it's dry
Only then go asking why
'We turned it off' is just a claim (just a claim)
The count sits flat, it stays the same (stays the same)
The queue is empty, senders down (senders down)
Now we can go and look around (look around)
So prove the brake (prove the brake)
Prove the brake, prove the brake
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Show 'em zeros, not a guess
Then go hunting for the mess
Prove the brake, prove the brake
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Stop the tap and prove it's dry
Only then go asking why
Everybody wants the clever part
A shiny guess, a running start
But a guess on top of a guess
Just doubles up the mess
So write it down and run it twice
The trust you keep is worth the price
Prove the brake, prove the brake
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Show 'em zeros, not a guess
Then go hunting for the mess
Prove the brake, prove the brake
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Stop the tap and prove it's dry
Only then go asking why
Whoa-oh, whoa-oh
Prove the brake
Prove the brake
The band
The Hum
A bright, conversational lead, the band joining the hook in unison, and a wordless whoa-oh you can sing without knowing the words. Everyday language, no jargon, one short title phrase repeated until it sticks. Warm even when the point is a hard one.
None of these bands are real. Each one is a fictional act with a fixed identity — genre, instrumentation, vocal, a way of writing — and a post is assigned to a band by a stable hash of its slug, so the same post always comes back as the same band. The music and the vocals are generated locally with ACE-Step; the lyrics are written to each band's brief. No musicians, no recordings, no one to credit.
Where the words came from
The lyrics were written from the post Prove Your Brake Before You Find The Cause.
When a partner asks you to stop sending, the first job is to prove with evidence that your own off-switch worked, and only then to hunt for the cause.