This track comes from Aaron's military service — Air Force enlisted, Army Infantry officer, DoD civilian at SPAWAR/NIWC. It tackles Having security clearances and the walls it creates - the things you know but can't share, the isolation of classified knowledge. The lyrics get specific — "Those are unclassified, those I'll never shade" — because personal tracks on Majik's are personal for real, not performatively. The indie production matches the energy of the confession. It hits mysterious and guarded, in that order. Every personal track in the catalogue comes from a real moment, a real feeling, a real person. This one is no exception.
[verse 1]
There are things I know that I can never tell you
Not because I don't trust you, because I swore I'd be the well who
Holds the water underground where light can't reach
Classified compartments that I cannot breach
Even with the people sleeping next to me at night
The clearance is a wall between the left and right
Sides of my existence, I can't merge the branches
Some repositories are private, no second chances
At declassifying what the government installed
Behind the Stransky firewall, password-protected, walled
Off from every conversation that gets too close to the line
Sorry, can't discuss that, and yes I know it's fine
That you're curious, but the clearance level holds
[chorus]
Clearance level, what I know lives in the dark
Clearance level, classified down to the heart
You can ask but I can't answer, that's the deal I signed
Clearance level, some things stay behind
The wall that the government built inside my mind
Clearance level, a different kind of confined
[verse 2]
At the party someone asks so what'd you do in the Navy
And the answer is a highlight reel, carefully and bravely
Edited to include the parts that are approved
For public consumption, but the truth is removed
From the narrative, replaced with generalities
I served, I deployed, I saw, formalities
That cover up the specifics like a redacted page
Black bars across the stories of a different age
When I was someone with a clearance and a need to know
Now I'm someone with a secret and nowhere to go
With the weight of it except to carry it quiet
Clearance level doesn't expire, don't try it
[chorus]
Clearance level, what I know lives in the dark
Clearance level, classified down to the heart
You can ask but I can't answer, that's the deal I signed
Clearance level, some things stay behind
The wall that the government built inside my mind
Clearance level, a different kind of confined
[bridge]
The startup world is open source, transparent, share it all
The government world is need-to-know, compartmentalized tall
Walls between the people working on the same floor
And I've lived in both, I know the score
The freedom of transparency is intoxicating
The discipline of secrecy is suffocating
But necessary, and I understand the why
Some things stay dark so the light can survive
[verse 3]
So I build in the open now, everything I can
Open source the code, publish the plan
Because the years of keeping secrets made me value
The things that can be shared, the things that hallow
The space between two people with no wall between
The clearance level's mine to keep, but the things I've seen
Since leaving, the Folly sunsets, the code, the music made
Those are unclassified, those I'll never shade
With black bars or redacted text or NDA
The clearance level stays, but so does the day
I decided that everything else I build is free
Clearance level: open, for the rest of me
[chorus]
Clearance level, what I knew lives in the dark
Clearance level, classified down to the heart
But everything I build from here is open wide
Clearance level, some things stay inside
But the man who walks the world is fully clear
Clearance level, I'm finally here
[outro]
Some doors stay locked
That's the promise I made
But every other door
Is wide open