Four Seconds (Embarcadero)

It's 8:15 on a Tuesday and the inbound BART is doing what inbound BART does: carrying everyone forward regardless of preference. Embarcadero station tiling — blue and cream, the kind of color decision that only makes sense on a blueprint — slides past the windows as the car fills past capacity at Montgomery, and now there is a tourist's suitcase against your shin and a crinkled paper bag against your elbow and a badge lanyard reading Salesforce swinging three inches from your face, and the intercom says something that the walls swallow before it reaches you.

Then the doors hold. Four seconds. Nobody moves. Nobody looks at each other. The chime sounds twice and the car lurches and you are, once again, being carried forward against your will — which is, when you think about it for the thirty seconds you have before Civic Center, basically the whole deal.

"Four Seconds (Embarcadero)" is a propulsive indie-rock vignette built around that specific held-door moment and the compressed, sardonic energy of a rush-hour crush. The rhythm section runs the car; the vocal rides on top of it, unhurried, noticing things — the fluorescents on the Montgomery platform, the exact crinkle of someone's bag, the way the intercom always sounds like news from a country you've never been to. No grand statements. Just the texture of being moved through the morning by a machine that has decided you are going downtown now.

[Verse 1] The Embarcadero tile is blue and cream A suitcase handles both my knees Some badge says Salesforce, someone's dream The intercom says something no one's heard The doors hold open — count to four — No one can explain what that was for

[Chorus] We're being carried, carried forward Against the morning, against the grain Compressed and moving, vaguely outward The car decides, we just remain We just remain

[Verse 2] A nurse in scrubs has found the pole A delivery guy's got both hands full The tourist's bag against my elbow Crinkles every time the train car lurches Montgomery platform fluorescents hum The chime sounds twice before we come

[Chorus] We're being carried, carried forward Against the morning, against the grain Compressed and moving, vaguely outward The car decides, we just remain We just remain

[Verse 3] The intercom cracks something like a name Or maybe it was just the brake complain In sixty seconds none of us will stay We'll scatter up the escalator, scatter Past the Ferry Building, past the bay Four seconds back, already yesterday

[Outro] The doors hold — one, two, three, four We're carried through the double door The doors hold — one, two, three, four We're carried through the door