There Are Four Lights

1 week ago by @motorcitymusicman

Liner Notes

This song was inspired by two things. The first is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called "Chain of Command." That two-part episode is one of the more critically acclaimed episodes of the series. In it, Captain Picard is apprehended while on a clandestine mission and is tortured for information. When it becomes clear that Picard either doesn't know or is unwilling to reveal plans of military significance, his inquisitor changes tactics. Pointing to a wall with four bright lights mounted on it, the inquisitor asks how many lights Picard sees. When Picard answers "four," he is subjected to increasingly brutal levels of torture. In an effort to break Picard, the inquisitor insists on getting him to say something he knows to be objectively untrue, that there are five lights. Picard refuses. At the very end, a deal is reached and Picard is freed just as it seems he is about to break. In the final scene, safe and back with his crewmates, Picard admits that, by the end, he actually believed he could see five lights.

The second inspiration was news stories earlier this week that applicants to high-level U.S. government positions in law-enforcement and intelligence are currently being asked, as a loyalty test, whether the presidential election in 2020 was stolen.

#political #lyricsonly

Lyrics

Verse One:

I applied for a job the other day
Everything seemed to be going my way
I was close to grabbing that brass ring
But the interviewer said “There’s one last thing.
Up on the wall in back of me
I want you to say how many lights you see.”

Chorus:

There are four lights
Up on that wall
There are four lights
I see them all
As sure as I know wrong from right
I’m telling you, there are four lights

Verse Two:

He shook his head and with a smile
Said “we might be here for a while
I don’t want to pick a fight
But you must say there are five lights
If at this job you want to thrive
I need to hear you tell me five.”

[repeat chorus]

Bridge:

How did this happen?
What can we do?
How can we move forward
If we can’t even agree
On things that are obviously true?

[repeat chorus]

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