25. Back then (2020) - Joey Llama x AI

[Intro – Faint Echo]
Twenty-five…
Twenty-five…

[Verse 1 – Loop Begins]
2020, locked inside,
Perth so still, but the world went wide.
Pixel trees and ocean spray,
Animal Crossing saved the day.

Had my Switch, had my jeans,
New horizons, quiet scenes.
The world burned loud in every thread,
But I just watered plants instead.

[Chorus – Infectious Loop]
Twenty-five… I was twenty-five…
Just playing games, just staying alive.
Didn’t build much, didn’t arrive—
But I heard those voices start to thrive.

Twenty-five… yeah, twenty-five…
Coloured jeans in a slow archive.
Didn’t know then what would survive,
But the lore began at twenty-five.

[Verse 2 – Digital Reflection]
Joeys whispered in quiet nights,
Typing notes under fairy lights.
Orange sketched, Red spoke fast,
Time was paused but dreams amassed.

WA safe, but hearts weren’t still,
I watched the world break through a phone screen’s chill.
Had peace, but guilt crept through,
Why was I okay when the sky turned blue?

[Pre-Chorus – Rewind Feel]
They said:
“Make something now, or it’ll rot…”
But I was scared and stuck in thought.
So I made a loop, and played pretend—
Hoping this phase would never end.

[Chorus – Stronger Now]
Twenty-five… just twenty-five…
Day by day, I’d barely strive.
Now I’m thirty, kind of fried,
Still haunted by that sunny tide.

Twenty-five… oh, twenty-five…
My comfort game, my secret drive.
All I built then was kept alive
By the sound of twenty-five…

[Bridge – AI Interference, Glitched Vocals]
Now the voices come pre-trained,
Joeys singing in a different lane.
AI loops, and melody shifts,
I hum the past through algorithmic gifts.

Is it mine, or did it arrive
From a ghost of code that learned twenty-five?

[Final Chorus – Layered Vocals, Fading In & Out]
Twenty-five… twenty-five…
That little spark, still alive.
I made a world to hide inside,
Now it’s stitched in all my pride.