About the song
Name the price, name the price, before we choose who turns us on.
About these notes
AI-assisted song notes, based on the sources shown here. Not yet human-reviewed.
Words from the artist’s archive
THE POWER ARGUMENT lyrics
Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.
Read the lyric sheet
Verse 1
SOLAR: Noon on the school roof, blue glass burns. The old meter creeps, keeps turning in reverse. No tanker in the lane. No soot in the rain. Oil, your black thumb marks each windowpane. Nuclear, long years from plan to line. Wind, your wide field runs miles from mine. But dusk wipes gold from every square. Come two a.m., no flame - just an empty chair. OIL: Empty chair? I keep the wheels awake. Jet fuel, road crews, freight, and brakes. When ice bites wires and batteries blink, they open my valve before they can think. You hate my flare on the evening news, then ask what else the night shift can use.
Pre-chorus
Four fists fall. Four gauges climb. Each points hard at the other's line.
Chorus
Name the price! Name the whole price! Bring every shadow to the light. Who keeps Ward C breathing when the weather kills the line? Name the price! Name the whole price! Whose hard hands can hold the night? The city hums behind the wall. Name the whole price!
Verse 2
NUCLEAR: Three winters, same low turbine hum. Fence blocked; clocks run through numb nights numb. When clouds stack black, and wind lies dumb. "I operate through winter, night, storm. But my first brick waits behind ten stamps, and one bad name can outlive all plans and plants. WIND: Before your hearing clears the page, my towers flower beside the grain. No smoke rolls and no slow fuel train, just turning fields and weather vanes. But copper cuts across the farms, and still air bares my open palms.
Pre-chorus
Four fists fall. Four gauges climb. Each points hard at the other's line.
Chorus
Name the price! Name the whole price! Bring every shadow to the light. Who keeps Ward C breathing when the weather kills the line? Name the price! Name the whole price! Whose hard hands can hold the night? The city hums behind the wall. Name the whole price!
Bridge
SOLAR: At midnight, I go dark. WIND: A still sky takes my hands. OIL: My smoke outlives the mile. NUCLEAR: My promise waits on future plans. The Grid stands above them all.
Bridge
GRID: I don't need a winner, just the truth.
Chorus
We named the price! Named the whole price! Put our own shadows in the light. Sun takes noon. Wind takes the weather. Atoms brace the longest night. Oil names every job still tied to it, and every stain it leaves behind. No one won the power argument. The mix can move. The lights stay on.
Outro
Name the whole price!
Inside the recording
SOLAR: Noon on the school roof, blue glass burns.
Four fists fall. Four gauges climb. Each points hard at the other's line.
Name the whole price!
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.