LYRICS:

[Verse 1]Nineteen seventy-nine, the school bell finally rings Walking past the rusted swings and all the broken things No headlights waiting in the lot, no shadow by the door Just the gravel crunching underneath the shoes I wore Reaching down inside my shirt to grab that piece of brass Spinning on a shoestring thread, waiting for the day to pass

[Pre-Chorus] Turn the lock and push it wide, the silence hits the wall Just the ticking of the kitchen clock echoing down the hall No one checking up on me, no hand to guide the way

[Chorus] And that’s the latchkey blueprint, the way the engine grows! Pouring down the concrete foundation no one knows Built a lethal independence out of quiet, empty space Learning how to survive without a single friendly face Yeah, I learned to stand alone, I learned to fight the cold But these walls are getting thick, and this key is getting old

[Verse 2] Microwave a frozen dinner, staring at the screen Static on the television, living in between Nobody asking where I’ve been or what I did today Just a ten-year-old mechanic figuring out the way Fix the handle on the drawer, rewire the broken lamp Growing up too fast inside a house so cold and damp

[Pre-Chorus] Turn the lock and push it wide, the silence hits the wall Just the ticking of the kitchen clock echoing down the hall No one checking up on me, no hand to guide the way

[Chorus] And that’s the latchkey blueprint, the way the engine grows! Pouring down the concrete foundation no one knows Built a lethal independence out of quiet, empty space Learning how to survive without a single friendly face Yeah, I learned to stand alone, I learned to fight the cold But these walls are getting thick, and this key is getting old

[Verse 3] Now they wonder why I’m distant, why I don’t let people in Why I look at every promise like a trap I cannot win They want to see inside my heart, they want to hold my hand But they didn’t walk the miles across this isolated land You can’t tear down a fortress that was built to save a life When the quiet was the shield against the worry and the strife

[Verse 4]

The key is still around my neck, though thirty years have flown A blue-collar everyday man, safe inside his zone It’s impossible to reach me now, I’ve locked the final gate The blueprint worked exactly right... but it sealed a lonely fate

[Chorus] And that’s the latchkey blueprint, the way the engine grows! Pouring down the concrete foundation no one knows Built a lethal independence out of quiet, empty space Learning how to survive without a single friendly face Yeah, I learned to stand alone, I learned to fight the cold But these walls are getting thick, and this key is getting old