1. THE STENCH OF BURNING THOUGHTS

It's a desire to set a blaze
See the fire rise
The Beauty of destruction
Something turns from white into black
The it fades away
So fascinating and so beyond belief
It's in the nature of mankind to feel this way
An inborn captivation
In a time where reading is illegal
And even having books is prohibited
Literacy is oppressed
The termination of having a mind on one's own starts
Loss of identity
Mass conformity
The roll of mass media grows
The display dictates the routine
There is information everywhere
Trivial or fundamental?
The line becomes thinner
Friends and relatives are net-worked digitally
The changes in the world affected the activities of the firemen
Instead of choking fires
They start fires to burn the unlawful books
Like in a circus show
People in the streets are
Watching the firefighters march out
The books are put on a pyre and then the fire releases the stench of burning thoughts


2. A BLIND FOLLOWER AND A WATCHFUL HOUND

Monday burn plato
Wednesday Spinoza
Friday Nietzsche
Burn 'em to ashes
Then burn the ashes
451, the salamander
These are our distinctive marks
Black hair, black brows
A fiery face
We look like multiples

I word at the firehouse since my 20th birthday
Like my father did
Like my grandfather did
I'm a fireman
I'm not allowed to read
That's against the law
Books must burn

The detection of the hostile books is done by an instrument which isn't dead but also not alive
Made of brass and copper
With spider like legs
The mechanical hound
For quite a while now
It feels like the beast is forcing on me
But why?
It's just a machine made to seek books
Is it paranoia or well-grounded fear?
Is there a bug in the system of this monster or does it smell the aroma books which might be on my hands after all these years?
I tell the fire chief about my fear
But he says it is impossible that the hound growls at me
To err is human


3. SOIL & GREEN

(Instrumental)


4. PECULIAR

It's autumn and the air is cold
I'm on my way home from work
But this evening a strange feeling surrounds me
I notice quite sounds in the dark
As I turn around
I look into the eyes of a young girl
We talk and chat
Her questions - so naïve
Though she seems to see through me
She asks if firemen always burned books
Because she heard about men who extinguished fires
What a weird idea
Books must burn
That's our job
She asks if I ever read a book
I'm taken aback
That's a crime
Curious questions from a peculiar girl
Her presence is so strange
I feel like an open book and she reads between the lines
The media tells us everything
So I haven't had any questions in the past
She asks if I'm happy
I have no answer to this question
What is so special about this girl?
She seems to see more than others
Such an open hearted mind
Soil & green
Rain drops and foliage
She lifts it all up to a higher level by reflection on it
We meet again
Her questions - Still naïve
Though she really gets through to me
She says that I'm not like other firemen
Due to the fact that I look at her when she talks
There's a glimpse of truth
Many people talk but nobody listens
She makes me reconsider so much
Opens new lines of thoughts
Maybe there's something special about written words?


5. THE NIGHTLY HORROR

Opening the door to my house
Words haunting through my head
It's late at night
I try to be quite and calm to not awake my wife
Entering the bedroom
Darkness everywhere
And a mosquitoesque hum's in the air
Unable to stand the silence, she listens to something
Something irrelevant
Loud trivial noise
This room look like a tomb
It seems so alien to me
I am not happy
The girl was right
My foot hit an object on the floor
A dull clink in the ongoing hum
Coming nearer to the bed
I can't hear her breathing
Under the light of my igniter horror's unleashed
Her face - pale as ashes
Her body - motionless
The object on the floor - an empty bottle of sleeping pills
Panic - I call the emergency
Waiting tremulous for help to come
Two men appear in front of me
No medics - just ordinal personnel
These cases are routine nowadays
No need for a medic
I watch their machine
This black cobra slides down her stomach
Pumping - until the stomach's void
That's not the end of their task
Sucking off all the blood to clean it from all poisons
Lack of emotion by the two men
Indifferent treatment
Without any word
They leave just like they came
The day after the incident
She wakes up but there's no recall
Acting upon me like a zombie
She ignores my consternation
Without rest the display still dictates her routine


6. PRELUDE TO PERIPETY

(Instrumental)


7. FATAL ACCIDENT

Emergency call
A reason to suspect attic
Flashing blue light
Sirens scream
The salamander coughs to life
We are marching out to burn
To burn the unlawful books
We arrive at an old house
An aged woman opens the door
Not trying to escape
Standing still
My colleagues rush past her
The mechanical hound in front
But the woman doesn't seem to fear our procedure
I don't know what to do
Like a pillar of salt
Unable to move for a few seconds
I follow the other firemen upstairs into the library
Entirely overwhelmed by the attitude of the woman and her powerful eloquence
She appears to see so much in these books
So much emotion, so many feelings, so many memories
A fountain of thrown books sloshes out of the door and an open one falls into my hands
I read just a line but it blazes in my mind
Meaningful gestures
Literary excerpts
Spoiler of our ritual
Bibliophile
Uninterested behavior
House = pyre
Show must go on
Dissemination of kerosene
Like controlled by an invisible hand, I snatch some books
Put them under my garment
There's nobody holding me back
Something inside me wants to know more about these books
The emotions they hold
The procedure
starts now
10, 9, 8, 7
The woman wants to stay
6
The counting stops
The woman shows a slender object
A kitchen match
We escape the inevitable
The stench surrounds her
The Stench of burning


8. STRUGGLING DOUBT

How could this happen?
This can't be real
I can't play my role as if nothing happened
I'll sham illness
I can never do this job again
My wife doesn't listen to my problem
She's lost in her digital world
This woman died for her firm conviction
What is so wrong about reading?


9. MOMENT OF TRUTH

One day later the fire chief comes to visit me
He wants to check my health status and wants to know when I would return to work
Right before I could answer, he started to tell me the truth about our job
The here and now is not a result of the state's doctrine
It was forced by the people itself
It began as Consumerism changed and everyone wanted everything
Things began to have mass
It all started With photography and the invention of television
Books just appealed to a few people
So the content got reduced
From abstracts to headlines
Simply to have a blowoff
The world moved faster and it was easier to watch the TV
Classics if literature were shortened to a one-page digest in a lexicon to make sure that no one is left behind
The ongoing growth of mass media seemed to reach more people
The comprehension was easier because the explanations were shallow-brained
Why should anyone learn anything when it's enough to press a button
There's no room for profoundness in these restless days
The here and now is not a result of the states' doctrine
It was forced by the people itself
You see there is nothing necessary about books
On their pages you won't find any answers
They'll only confuse you


10. AWARENESS

After the fire chief left
I am totalt perplexed
Was it true what he said?
Is a book just an unimportant absurdity?
The young girl comes to my mind
She seemed to be so frank, with an open heart for everything
I can't resist no longer
I open a book and read letter by letter - word by word
From the outset, there's so much going on in my head
I feel emotions - I've never felt in my life
New thoughts sprout in my mind
these words are so powerful
So full of life
I come to the conclusion
That I haven't learnt reading to decode billboards and I haven't learnt orthography just to write short messages
My wife can't understand my behavior
She packs her things and abandons me
Her belief in the system is too strong
The hardest part of this circumstance is: After the slamming of the door, she will forget about me
The girl knows more about me than my wife ever did
What was the basis for our marriage?
I can't remember
I become aware of so many things
It's like I've just started to think
I think therefore I am
Reading fills the void I have always felt
People aren't happy these days
The media blocks them from thinking on their own
That's why they can't realize that they are thoroughly distraught


11. SURVEILLANCE WEB

(Instrumental)


12. CATHARSIS

I hear the siren drawing near
451
I am exposed
The salamander arrives in front of my house
Before the door
The fire chief
Armed with a flamethrower
Ready for a new procedure
He roars at me
Open the door
There's no way out
You know what's gonna happen now
This is your chance
Show me that you regret
You fatuous fool
Books aren't necessary
They cause disorder between people
Disturbing the peace
Your wife's already gone
Do you want to lose everything
For heaven's sake
Do you remember the girl
You met her several times
We had to eliminate her
She was a nonconformist and you are turning into one, too
Take the flamethrower
Burn the books to ashes
Then burn the ashes
He hands me the weapon
I turn around and pull the trigger
The fire chief turns into a human torch
He flares, he flickers
Than he breaks down
With the books put under my garment
I burn everything down to ashes
All the lies, all the insanity
To leave the corset that once was my life
She was a nonconformist and you are turning into one, too
Take the flamethrower
Burn the books to ashes
Then burn the ashes


13. BLACK INTO WHITE

Absolutely paralyzed
What have I done
Invisibly cicatrized
Going on the run
My target is the river
So that the hound can't follow
My former colleagues fed it with my DNA
This creature that's not dead and not alive
I feel its presence so near
Flashing blue light and siren's screams
The displays that surround me broadcast the chase like movie scenes
As I arrive at the water
I throw my clothes and my past away
Firemen are just pawns in a game of senselessness
Instead of choking fires they start fires
Now it's time to change my life from black into white
Black into white
Everything that I believe in
It was only a shade of the truth
My life was like the hound
Not dead - not alive
Now I'm gonna change my life from black into white
Flashing lights and bomb blasts
A violent tendency no one perceived
Out of control
The unavoidable war starts far away behind me
Restrained emotions break free
End of the line
Every end is a new beginning