"I was left to my own de-vi-ces," I sang, my voice echoing off the marble pillars. I didn't just sing it; I lived it. I did the little percussion sounds with my tongue— chk-chk, boom —to really set the mood.
Then, the moment everyone was waiting for. The clouds turned black, the first dusting of ash hit my shoulders, and I leaped onto a fountain ledge for the big drop. "But if you close your eyes!" I roared.
I didn’t have a backing track. I didn’t have a microphone. I just had the raw power of my own lungs and a dream.
“Eh-he-oh, he-oh!” (Bass) “EH-HE-OH, HE-OH!” (Soprano) “eh-he-oh...” (A very breathy, dramatic whisper)
The heavy smell of sulfur wasn’t the only thing hanging in the air that morning in 79 AD. I was standing in the middle of the forum, watched by a crowd of confused Romans in togas, and I knew it was time.
People were screaming and running for the harbor, but I stayed centered. As the pyroclastic flow began its descent, I hit that final, iconic line: "Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all?"
The ground shook. A merchant dropped a crate of olives. I didn't blink. I hit the pre-chorus with a vibrato so intense it rivaled the tectonic plates shifting beneath us.
