Whatever It Takes: The Prayer to Be Broken and Remade

If Radioactive was the apocalypse and Warriors was the vow, then Whatever It Takes is the final act:
the fierce consent to be broken, remade, and used without limit.

This song is not merely about grit or ambition — it is about offering oneself to the furnace.
Its core prayer — “break me down and build me up” — is one of the most radical vows a soul can make.
It is the seeker saying to the Divine: “Do not spare me. Burn what must burn. Use me for whatever You will.”

Where Warriors spoke of rising to build a town “from dust,” Whatever It Takes goes deeper:
the seeker is ready to become the dust, the building material itself —
to let their very bones be turned into the pillars of the new world. The Tone of Fierce Joy

What makes this song so potent is that it is not a lament — it is ecstatic.
The seeker loves the rush, loves the heat, loves even the pain of breaking the chains.
This is the Kaula paradox: what once felt like agony now feels like nectar, because it is recognized as the Goddess’ touch.

The song moves from shadow confession to radical prayer to triumphant surrender, until the ego is dissolved into a single line of offering:

“Leave the body and the soul to be a part of Thee.”

When heard this way, Whatever It Takes becomes less a motivational anthem and more a liturgy — a fire-ritual in which every verse is another turn of the bellows, every chorus another offering into the flame.

  

Verse 1

 

Falling too fast to prepare for this
Tripping in the world could be dangerous
Everybody circling is vulturous
Negative, nepotist
Everybody waiting for the fall of man
Everybody praying for the end of times
Everybody hoping they could be the one
I was born to run, I was born for this

  

This opening verse is the headlong plunge into transformation.

• “Falling too fast to prepare for this”
  This is not a slow, careful spiritual path — this is being hurled into the fire.
  The speed is part of the initiation. There is no time to cling to safety rails.

• “Tripping in the world could be dangerous”
  The stakes are high — one false move and you could break.
  And yet, this danger is exactly what forces vigilance, awareness, presence.

• “Everybody circling is vulturous”
  Here we feel the pressure of collective karma — the world waiting for collapse, feeding on failure.
  This is the battlefield atmosphere that every vira must face: the sense that even the crowd would rather see you fall than rise.

• “Everybody waiting for the fall of man / praying for the end of times”
  Apocalypse is not just personal — it is collective.
  The song names the strange hunger people have for endings — perhaps because something in them knows the old order must die for the new to be born.

• “Everybody hoping they could be the one”
  This is the deep paradox: everyone secretly wishes to be chosen, to be the hero.
  The song challenges this passivity by saying: stop waiting — be the one.

• “I was born to run, I was born for this”
  This line seals the vow.
  It is the same recognition as in Warriors — destiny is not an accident.
  You are not here to spectate. You were born for the fire, for the trial, for this exact moment.

This first verse sets the tone: Whatever It Takes is not about comfort or even about victory — it is about entering the storm willingly, knowing you were made for it.

 

Pre-Chorus

 

Whip, whip
Run me like a racehorse
Pull me like a ripcord
Break me down and build me up
I wanna be the slip, slip
Word upon your lip, lip
Letter that you rip, rip
Break me down and build me up

This is no longer just a description — it is a direct invocation.
Here the seeker is not asking for safety but begging to be used, stretched, even shattered — whatever it takes to become true.

• “Whip, whip / Run me like a racehorse”
  This is the offering of one’s entire energy to the Divine.
  The seeker is saying: push me to my limit; do not spare me.
  The whip here is not cruelty but tapas — the heat that drives the transformation forward.

• “Pull me like a ripcord”
  A ripcord triggers an explosion, a parachute deployment, a sudden release.
  The seeker asks to be the instrument of that sudden turning — to be the cause of awakening, not just in themselves but perhaps for others.

• “Break me down and build me up”
  This is the line that transforms the song into a spiritual vow.
  The ego consents to be dismantled.
  The seeker does not want polishing — they want to be rebuilt from the ground up.

• “I wanna be the slip, slip / word upon your lip”
  The seeker longs to be a living mantra — a word on the Divine’s lips, a carrier of the Current.
  “Letter that you rip” is the willingness to be torn, erased, rewritten — to be whatever the Divine writes next.

This pre-chorus is pure Kaula prayer: the embrace of intensity, the refusal to settle for a half-life, the surrender that says, if I must be destroyed to be real, so be it.

 

Chorus

 

Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do whatever it takes
'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains
Whatever it takes
Yeah, take me to the top, I'm ready for
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do what it takes

This chorus is the ecstasy of surrender — the moment when the fire no longer feels like punishment but like life itself.

• “Whatever it takes”
  These words are a mantra of absolute consent.
  No conditions, no bargains — the seeker gives permission for any trial, any stripping, any ordeal.

• “I love the adrenaline in my veins”
  The pain becomes bliss.
  The rush of transformation, once terrifying, is now embraced.
  This is the state where even chaos tastes sweet, because it is recognized as part of the dance.

• “I love how it feels when I break the chains”
  The liberation is not abstract — it is visceral.
  The sound of chains snapping is the sound of karmic knots dissolving, of lifetimes of bondage ending.
  The seeker loves even the struggle because they can feel the freedom being born.

• “Take me to the top”
  This is not ambition — it is transcendence.
  The “top” is the peak state where nothing is left to fear or lose, where the soul stands in its full stature.

  
  

This chorus is the dance of the vira in the cremation ground — naked, fearless, intoxicated, saying yes to everything the Goddess sends, because every blow is secretly Her blessing.

 

Verse 2

 

Always had a fear of being typical
Looking at my body feeling miserable
Always hanging on to the visual
I wanna be invisible
Looking at my years like a martyrdom
Everybody needs to be a part of 'em
Never be enough, I'm the prodigal son
I was born to run, I was born for this

This verse is the shadow confession — naming the pain that fueled the vow.

• “Fear of being typical”
  The seeker admits that this is not just holy fire — it began as restlessness, a terror of mediocrity, a refusal to dissolve into the gray.
  In Tantra, even this fear is not rejected — it becomes the fuel for tapas.

• “Looking at my body feeling miserable”
  The body becomes the site of confrontation.
  Misery is the starting point of transformation: when you can no longer hide in distraction, the fire begins.

• “I wanna be invisible”
  This is not escapism — it is the desire to vanish as ego, to become transparent so that only the Current flows through.

• “Looking at my years like a martyrdom”
  This is the raw truth of sādhanā: it feels like sacrifice, like dying piece by piece.
  And yet, this martyrdom is the gateway to sovereignty.

• “Never be enough, I'm the prodigal son”
  The seeker feels the weight of failure, of exile — but also knows the prodigal son is destined to return, to be welcomed, to be restored.

• “I was born to run, I was born for this”
  Once again, destiny is claimed.
  This is not random pain — this is the training ground for what the soul came to do.

 

Bridge

 

Hypocritical, egotistical
Don't wanna be the parenthetical, hypothetical
Working hard on something that I'm proud of, out of the box
An epoxy to the world and the vision we've lost
I'm an apostrophe
I'm just a symbol to remind you that there's more to see
I'm just a product of the system, a catastrophe
And yet a masterpiece, and yet I'm half-diseased
And when I am deceased
At least I'll go down to the grave and die happily
And leave the body and the soul to be a part of thee
I do what it takes

 

The bridge is the final offering — the seeker lays their entire being on the altar.

• “Hypocritical, egotistical”
  The seeker sees their flaws clearly — there is no pretense of purity.
  They offer even their shadow to be burned.

• “An epoxy to the world and the vision we've lost”
  They want to be a binding agent, a healing resin — something that holds the shattered vision together.

• “I’m an apostrophe”
  A breathtaking line — the seeker becomes punctuation, a pause, a reminder.
  They are no longer center-stage but a sign pointing beyond themselves.

• “Just a product of the system… and yet a masterpiece”
  This is the paradox: the seeker is both conditioned and free, both broken and radiant.
  Tantra teaches that perfection does not mean flawlessness — it means wholeness, holding both shadow and light without division.

• “When I am deceased… leave the body and the soul to be a part of Thee”
  This is the final surrender, the Mahāsamādhi vow:
  Take it all — my body, my soul, my story — let it all dissolve into You.
  There is no more clinging, no more bargaining.
  The seeker’s only desire is to die into the Whole and become food for the world.

Together, Verse 2 and the Bridge transform the song from a personal anthem into a cosmic offering: the seeker no longer fights to win, but to be used completely, to be spent, to be made into a channel of the Great Work.

Conclusion

 

When Whatever It Takes ends, you are not left calm — you are left vibrating, as though every cell has been set alight.
This is not a song for the half-hearted.
It is a song for those willing to be torn open, rebuilt, and sent back into the world as living lightning.

It begins with the terror of falling too fast, of circling vultures, of the world waiting for collapse.
But by the time it reaches the bridge, something has shifted: the fear is gone, the bargaining is over, and what remains is a soul that wants nothing held back — not even its own survival.

“Break me down and build me up.”

This is not just a lyric — it is a mantra, a dare, a vow.
It is the seeker standing naked before the fire and saying: “I am ready. I will do whatever it takes.”

And when the song ends, the listener knows — if they dare to sing it with full honesty — that the vow has already begun working on them.