You Me and a Rock in the Gear
“You Me and a Rock in the Gear” is an audio recording by the Cheap City Cultural Ambassadors. It is the final song on the album Clocktower Broke, released in 2018.
Analysis
As is the rest of Clocktower Broke, “You Me and a Rock in the Gear” is told from the perspective on an unnamed narrator, at times believed to be Nervous Ashers, but this has not been definitively confirmed. This narrator often speaks in double meanings, referring both to the actual circumstances of the Clock Event, but also to his own anxieties (particularly insomnia and hypochondria) and the object of his romantic affections.
It has been speculated by critics, primarily music theorist, Annabell Holder in her essay “Cleaning The Cogs: An exploration of the CCCA’s early works” that a romantic tryst is what spurred Nervous Ashers’ destruction of the Cheap City Clock Corporation. This is suggested by the narrator addressing the listener as “Fragile gem.” This is followed by, “Working on the line again,” suggesting that the narrator feels some degree of guilt that his love interest is forced to work such long hours under manual labor conditions. The refrain used later, “Break like the thunder,” has a double meaning. It refers to the breaking of the clock gears as well as the freeing of the narrator’s heart. The bridge, in an unrelated key to the rest of the song, describes “sinking down,” suggesting that the narrator is not necessarily convinced that he deserves his affection to be reciprocated. But it simultaneously describes the sinking of the clocktower into the streets of Cheap City.
Lyrics
Fragile gem
Fell asleep at work again
Delicate men
Resting in your arms again
Work your fingers to the bone til a quarter to three
Work your body. Work your body. Work it for me.
I’m a broken timepiece. You’re a grandfather clock
Looking at the sky like you’re ready to pop
Until you break like the thunder
Fragile gem
Working on the line again
Gray turns to black until you’re stagnant with fear
And then you plus me makes a rock in the gear
Sink down down down
In the filthy filthy ground
Until you find the place where the landfill stops
Where the soda cans get replaced with rocks
Sink down down down
In the filthy filthy ground
down down down
After the clock tower broke it was something more than an event to keep the newspapers busy. It was a new set of rules for a group of people who didn’t have to think about time anymore. We realized that the burden of time brought us to a place where we froze everything and the trash filled the streets and everything got cheap.
Dancing in the break room at a quarter to three
I’ve never seen you feel so free
I’m a broken timepiece. You’re a grandfather clock
Looking at the sky like you’re ready to pop
Until you break like the thunder