specimen [feat. Doechii]
- SUBJECT PINNED / UNDER OBSERVATION
- AIR RECIRCULATED
- FAULT LINE PRESENT
“You can measure every movement, you can never know me whole”
The literal definition of the album title. She is displayed under the dome, the fig tree branches overhead, every possible future ripe and out of reach, and she breathes her own sour air while the city burns too bright outside.
Keep still, look alive: the instructions come from the lab. Doechii's verse breaks the frame from inside, the study in the jar talking back, and the final chorus concedes only the measurements. What the fracture is stays with the specimen.
LYRICS / TRANSCRIPT
Intro
Keep still
Look alive
Verse 1
Pin me to the velvet, love
Big city lights are just a blur
Branches multiply above me
I can't pick which I prefer
Every future hangs there, ripe
Close enough to almost pick
I hold my face exactly right
Like choosing one would ruin it
Pre-Chorus
Touch the glass until it warms
Trace the parts you recognize
Every life I could have lived
Hangs somewhere on the other side
Chorus
I'm a specimen, a specimen
Breathing underneath the dome
Watch the whole world moving past me
Like a life I almost know
Specimen, specimen
A wanting thing you keep in sight
Stewing in my own sour air
While the city burns too bright
Post-Chorus
Keep still
Look alive
Verse 2
I disappear in scalding water
Scrub until the feeling thins
All my lives are lined up nicely
None of them will let me in
I perform a little tremble
Give you sorrow you can keep
Hold the pose until it's pretty
Make the waking look like sleep
Pre-Chorus
Touch the surface 'til it's warm
Trace the parts you recognize
Every life I could have lived
Hangs somewhere on the other side
Chorus
I'm a specimen, a specimen
Still breathing underneath the dome
Watch the whole world moving past me
Like a life I almost know
Specimen, specimen
A wanting thing you keep in sight
Stewing in my own sour air
While the city burns too bright
Rap
Four on the floor, let it knock through the slab
Hands off the glass, don't you smudge up the lab
Haylie on the chart with a pin in her back
They wrote me down stable, watch me laugh at that
Soft voice, hard facts, hear the hairline crack
I'm a study in a jar and the jar talkin' back
Fig tree in my ribs droppin' fruit on the tile
One ripe, one rotten, and I want 'em in a pile
Pick with my teeth, never learned to pick clean
Every life I let spoil got a sister in me
Breathe on the pane 'til the science go blurry
Hold the smile on three, hold it, hold the fury
Spin that loop, let the sample stretch
Every small twitch got a plane to catch
Bridge
The glass remembers fingerprints
Even after hands are gone
I live somewhere behind my eyes
Watching everything move on
Hold me underneath the light
You can see where pressure lives
You can name the smallest fracture
You can't tell me what it is
Chorus
I'm a specimen, a specimen
Still breathing underneath the dome
You can measure every movement
You can never know me whole
Specimen, specimen
A wanting thing you keep in sight
There's a fault line running through me
And the world is just outside
- ARTIST
- Haylie Ferguson
- FEATURING
- Doechii
- EDITION
- the bell jar: victoria lucas
- LABEL
- Maison Oblique Entertainment