Epithet Erased - 'Countdown' (Zora Villain Song)

Instrumental - @PhoebesHere
Lyrics - Brendan Blaber + PLASTERBRAIN

FULL LYRICS:

Never wanna rest
When there’s a bounty on my desk
Find that my ‘tention gets a-wrested by that
Poster in my mind
I got a fugitive to find
Bearin’ my canines, knowin’ that later I
Will have won
The countdown
The countdown
Has begun

VERSE 1:
Tracin’ blood through the mud, I can smell his fear
Wounded prey ain’t hard to track
“Life was hard behind bars,” said the shakin’ deer
“And I ain’t goin’ back!”
Tossed a pistol, made it crystal clear what’s next:
Ten paces or the iron cuffs
Your last chance to dance is layin’ at your feet
All you have to do is pick it up!
Ha!

CHORUS:
Time’s in my control
You won’t see the light of day
So show me what you got
Take your best shot
Fire away

BRIDGE 1:
Seems the next to hang’s
Gonna be an entire gang
This event will end with a bang like dy-na-
Might’ve had a chance
But I made physics look askance
Big iron romance, they’n I go an’ dance
Five to one
They go down
They go down
Like the sun

VERSE 2:
Chase you down like the sound of a sizzling spark
On a trail of TNT
Got your pals, all corralled, just for a lark
No one left but you ‘n me
And the tick-tock of my flintlock’s hangfire
Lights your lifespan like that powder trail
Had a little fun, thought you thought that you could run from me…
Gonna tell you, looks like you failed
Aw…

CHORUS:
Time’s in my control
And you know what people say
So show me what you got
Take your best shot
Fire away

BRIDGE 2:
Time to make amends
I got a client wants revenge
Jailbird had killed his former friend and the law
Let the bird fly free
Black-hearted murder up a tree
So he comes to me cause I’m reputedly
Number one
By sundown
By sundown
I’ll be done

VERSE 3:
There’s a notch on her watch for each man she’s killed
I think it’s cute she still has room
She’s the cock of the walk at her prison guild
Chick’s about to meet her doom
Gotta hand it to the bandit she can crow real loud
But every swan has a final song
Might be a canary fairly soon I fear
‘Cause her lifespan ain’t lookin’ long!
Hah~!

Time’s in my control
So’s the barrel of this gun
So show me what you got
Take your best shot
Now I’ve won

[drilltotheheavens]

How to make a villain more intimidating before their next appearance:
Give them a badass theme song about how easily they hunt down their targets.

[crowsenpai]

“And the Tick-Tock of my Flintlock’s Hangfire~” is such a fun line, I love it.

[EinDose]

I loved Zora because she's probably got the single most dangerous epithet we saw, but doesn't have the drive to be any more than a big fish in a small pond.

[glwgameplayer]

For the curious, Hangfire is an event in which the firing of a gun is delayed by an unknown amount of time due to issues with the starter, the powder, or so on. Hangfire is usually dangerous because if it goes on for too long the user may believe the gun jammed or misfired instead and when they go to clear the jam the bullet goes off aimed in a different direction from intended
In Zora’s case she may be intentionally using Hangfire to produce strange delays in the firing of her gun, either to trip up her opponents or to “stock” trigger pulls and bullets without needing to reload or pull the trigger again.

[Dsaberguy]

"There a notch on her watch
For each man she's killed
I think it cute
she still has room"
How to be badass by downplaying a bounty's kill count in a song about hunting said target.

[camerongrow]

Zora really lives the "every villians the hero of their own story, " line. I swear if you hadn't seen the show you'd think she's an anti-hero protagonist.

[rickypedia]

3:40 for those unaware, "cock of the walk" means you like to walk around and act like a big shot. This apparently caused issues with people who didn't know that "cock" means more than one thing. I was hoping it'd be a pun about cocking your gun as well

[finn_underwood]

The hidden countdown is a cute detail not enough people are mentioning.

[louisstafford]

I love that the bullet hole in the screen at the end makes "zero". Cheeky!

[chocolate-]

This sounds like the outro of a movie where the villian won

[egon]

Zora in Countdown: Effortlessly kills 7 people in a day without using her epithet
Zora in That Beautiful Sound: Gets scared off from killing an incompetent villain by a 12 year old with soap

[Unorthodoxica]

The vocals? The instrumental? The WORDPLAY? All amazing. I absolutely adore this.

[emopeterparker]

the lyricism for this is off the charts, holy shit. and the voice acting and vocals are so good...zora's growls and dynamics just add to the song. the instrumental and mixing are SO good. great song

[r.wilson]

oh my god that was SO COOL
faked us out with that “im number one, ” i was expecting the countdown to end there, but the way it actually ended was WAY better. i love the art for it too, so goodd. the wordplay here is godlike

EDIT: I just realized the countdown actually starts at 10, not 6, shit. also i want to give notice to all the bird puns during jailbird’s segment

[ketzellrae]

I get the feeling Ramsey has only survived as long as he has against Zora is because his own epithet serves as a convenient counter to hers. "Pure gold never corrodes" indeed.

[Lightning_bugs]

Of course the song called countdown contains a LITERAL countdown in the lyrics. Wouldn’t have it any other way

[Drawntoclassics]

1:45 I love how it goes “ like dyni…might’ve”

[PitterPomCB]

I love that the countdown numbers don't have any pattern, and just kinda come out of nowhere through the song. Adds a fun bit of tension, like she could pull the trigger at any moment if you're not careful.

[RockingSpaceDragon]

Hot DAMN what a banger! This is the kinda thing you'd hear performed in the back of a bar by someone talking about Zora

[williamfalls]

In my headcanon, Zora's target is a song producer that's buying time by offering her several opportunities to record any and all songs she has stuck in her head... And Zora, looking to showboat, accepts the offer before the ultimate demise of the song producer.