[Intro]
[Felt piano plays the circuit motif upward while rainwater moves quietly across the marble floor.]

Morning enters without applause.
No sponsor owns the early pause.
Masks lie dull beside the drain.
Gold paint loosens in the rain.

[Verse 1]
The ballroom chairs are stacked in rows,
The emergency light no longer glows.
A cleaner gathers broken stems,
Careful not to cut her hands on them.
The waiter finds beneath a seat
A contract marked Private--Do Not Repeat.
He carries it to the eastern door,
Where people catalogue the floor.

[Chorus]
Break the golden circuit, link by link and line by line.
Open every locked-in channel; give the public back its time.
Break the golden circuit, let the common current run.
No more crowns above the many--many voices acting one.

[Verse 2]
The editor helps restore the page,
Then signs his name beneath the change.
The reporter says, "A name is due,
But naming does not make it new."
The technician draws an open frame
That shows who changed a reach or name.
The warehouse picker takes the chair:
"No plan is real if labor's absent there."

[Verse 3]
The veteran works the folding room,
The nurse brings records from the gloom.
The elder sets down river clay
Beside the server maps that day.
"Technology is built on ground.
Every cloud has land around.
Ask whose water cools the wire.
Ask whose home stands near the fire."

[Instrumental Break]
[Clean guitar, cello and organ pass the rising circuit motif between them before the full rhythm section enters.]

[Bridge]
One leaked file is not a law.
One opened gate repairs no flaw.
One honest broadcast cannot mend
A market built to make truth bend.

[Bridge]
So keep the minutes. Name the vote.
Protect the source. Preserve the note.
Fund the desk that knows the street.
Give workers standing at the seat.

[Buildup]
The presses roll with ownership shown.
The server code is tested and known.
The laundromat becomes a hall.
Camera four belongs to all.

[Buildup]
The first edition reaches the street.
No paywall blocks the leed beneath.
Across the top, in letters plain:
"WHO OWNED THE SILENCE--FOLLOW THE CHAIN."

[Final Chorus]
Break the golden circuit, every ledger, every feed.
Place the rules beneath the public, place the worker near the key.
Break the golden circuit, not with worship, not with rage--
With a thousand open meetings and a fully printed page.

[Outro]
The cleaner opens every blind.
Cold morning fills the room behind.
Three notes rise through brass and wire--
Not a crown. A common choir.