[Verse 1] Once we dreamed of flying cars and cities in the sky Progress was a promise that would lift us ever high But somewhere in the nineties something shifted in our gaze We started looking backwards through a nostalgic haze Derrida spoke of hauntology, the spectral and unseen Ghosts of what could have been haunting what has been The future that we lost somewhere along the way Echoes in our culture every single day [Chorus] Hauntology and retromania, cycling through the past Cultural stagnation, nothing new can last Restorative seeks to rebuild what's gone Reflective shows us how to carry on The future's lost dimension, where did it disappear? Political affect of dreams we held so dear [Verse 2] Reynolds called it retromania, this endless looking back Sampling, reboots, remakes on every beaten track No more sonic revolution, just recycling what we know While the future fades away with nowhere left to go Boym distinguished two types of how we miss the past Restorative wants to bring back what couldn't last But reflective nostalgia helps us understand The complex loss of futures we had once planned [Chorus] Hauntology and retromania, cycling through the past Cultural stagnation, nothing new can last Restorative seeks to rebuild what's gone Reflective shows us how to carry on The future's lost dimension, where did it disappear? Political affect of dreams we held so dear [Bridge] Vaporwave plays with memories of commercial dreams Eighties aesthetics, neon-lit consumer schemes A symptom of our longing for a time that never was When the future felt so certain, now it's lost because [Verse 3] Fisher saw the politics in this temporal shift When futures feel impossible, spirits start to drift The lost future becomes feeling, not just thought or plan A ghostly presence haunting every woman, every man [Final Chorus] Hauntology and retromania, cycling through the past Cultural stagnation, nothing new can last Restorative seeks to rebuild what's gone Reflective shows us how to carry on The future's lost dimension, we must understand To build tomorrow's visions with our own two hands [Outro] The ghosts of futures lost still whisper in our ears But knowing how they haunt us helps us face our fears
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