Emperor Leon

[Intro]
Easy now... easy now...
The Emperor is awake.

[Verse 1]
Half past five in the morning and the Emperor has decided
that the wet food cannot wait around till seven.
He's sitting on the back of your knees, he's butting at your chin,
and the look says: I have waited here for aeons.

[Pre-Chorus]
First the dry, the kind you have to hear,
then the wet, the kind you have to smell,
and then the milk, and make it now —
water? Water is for plants.

[Chorus]
Emperor Leon, red-brown and round,
he don't need a way and he don't need a ground.
No chip, no protocol, no system counting him —
he was simply there,
and that was that decided.
Oh, Emperor Leon,
tell me how you do it.

[Verse 2]
Mrs Brandt was far too slow — no word of protest spoken,
he turns around and marches down the wall.
A cat of the world maintains a second residence,
and Erik only says:
The Emperor has changed provinces tonight.

[Pre-Chorus]
Effort means nothing to the Emperor.
The Emperor is interested in results.
And the result here is the tin,
and the tin is due right now.

[Chorus]
Emperor Leon, red-brown and round,
he don't need a way and he don't need a ground.
No chip, no protocol, no system counting him —
he was simply there,
and that was that decided.
Oh, Emperor Leon,
tell me how you do it.

[Verse 3]
The vacuum robot's humming, his sworn and ancient enemy —
it used to have a cord and a human on the end.
That it drives itself these days has never ended the war,
it only straightened out the front,
and the Emperor withdraws into his cave of felt.

[Bridge — toast, spoken over the beat]
And the snow, the snow, he marches out in it,
head held high through a kingdom redecorated without asking,
leaving a trail of small, offended craters
and acting like every one of them was meant.
Every paw a humiliation —
but a private one.
And private humiliations,
an emperor bears with dignity,
as long as nobody's watching.
Nobody was watching.

[Verse 4]
And the old woman in the waiting room let a sentence fall,
so offhand that she didn't even mean it:
you only have to stop wanting to be somewhere else.
She left and never thought of it again.
Leon on the lap
just blinked once, slowly.
Because Leon's known that all along.

[Final Chorus]
Emperor Leon, red-brown and round —
no way, no stairs, no method and no course.
He's lying in the sun, he has nothing left to reach for,
he is simply there,
and that is entirely enough.
Oh, Emperor Leon,
you knew it all along.

[Outro]
And if you go and ask him,
he opens up one eye,
he looks at you —
and closes it again.

Only milk. No water.
Only sun. No plan.
It happens, man.
It happens.