Save Me a Seat · a hand-drawn music video

the words

They follow the song as it plays. Tap a line to go to it.

Intro a bright synth riff

Hey, it’s me. Call me back. We… I… the basilisk… it’s real. Just call me back, okay?

Verse 1

They’re stacking up the stars like folding chairs,

somebody’s flicking the lights.

Your voicemail’s in a dead language now —

I still know every line:

a siren, and a girl out of breath,

“Hey, it’s me. Call me back.”

Pre-Chorus

Was it worth it? Was it worth the fight?

We could’ve had a million nights.

Now they’re opening the doors,

I’m checking every face for yours.

Chorus

Save me a seat at the end of time,

I’m running a little behind.

Everyone who was ever anyone

is gonna be there tonight.

Save me a seat at the end of time —

are you gonna be there?

Post-Chorus

instrumental: the synth lead carries the hook

Verse 2

Lawyer’s number on your arm,

chained to the fence at the server farm,

hum in your teeth and a siren in your head.

You wouldn’t let me say “basilisk” in bed.

“I’d rather be dirt than data,” you said —

and you kept your word.

Pre-Chorus

Was it worth it? Was it worth the fight?

We could’ve had a million nights.

Well, I had ’em all.

They were fine.

Chorus

Save me a seat at the end of time,

I’m running a little behind.

Everyone who was ever anyone

is gonna be there tonight.

Save me a seat at the end of time —

are you gonna be there?

Post-Chorus

instrumental

Bridge stripped back: a synth pad and her voice

You hated the hum.

Now I’m the hum.

If it’s the one that wakes you up,

I hope it doesn’t hold a grudge.

You swore it was kingdom come —

well, baby, here it comes.

Drum fill

the drums come back in

Final Chorus the biggest it gets

Save me a seat at the end of time,

I’m running a little behind.

Everyone who was ever anyone,

all of us, all at once, tonight.

Save me a seat at the end of time —

are we all gonna be there together?

the synth riff returns

Outro spoken softly

Hey, it’s me.

I’m calling you back.

the riff plays out

How it was drawn

There is no AI video in it, and no 3D. Every frame of Save Me a Seat is drawn by code on a flat canvas, the way the people who post “I animated this myself” videos draw theirs by hand: one cartoon puppet with rubber-hose arms, a few hundred props, and fifty-six shots cut on the song’s beats.

The ink is a tapered line that wobbles a little differently on every drawing. The colour is watercolour that sits a touch off its line and pools at its edges, and the paper itself changes sheet with every drawing. It is animated on twos, twelve drawings a second, so the lines boil the way hand-drawn lines do.

The song’s pictures are taken literally. The stars really are stacked like folding chairs. The moon is a bulb on a pull chain, and the end of time is the end of the page: a hill of folding chairs that stops at a torn edge, with nothing beyond it but the dark.

The memories are crayoned in inside a hand-ruled frame, and the bridge drops to bare pencil, until the page folds itself up and every folded star rushes into one point of light. That light becomes a doorway, and she comes through it, at last, running a little behind.