Candi Carpenter
Inside the Simulation

With a song filled with sincere tenderness, Candi Carpenter still manages to weave in pop culture references and high-definition metaphors in their latest single, ‘Inside the Simulation’.

There’s a halo of synth with an ebb-and-flow intensity, but the big warm guitar sound is the main sound bed for Carpenter’s voice to skim and soar. And soar it does, flying right up to the high echelons where it bounces off the clouds.

Crucially, the vocal captures the high emotion of the lyrics, taking the grittiness of the analogies and rendering them with beauty. The dead goldfish, the mutant, and the decomposing leaf all have an earthy honesty that helps you connect to the theme of the song and the central premise of it all being a simulation works for this unusual love song.

There are some songs out there in the world that give you permission to feel and this is one of them.

Inside the Simulation Video

Watch Candi Carpenter – ‘Inside the Simulation’.

Inside the Simulation Lyrics

Hello there, Delilah
My mental health is in the toilet
Flush me like a goldfish baby
Send me down the drain
Let’s live forever
With the rats inside the sewer
I can be your mutant
Take a bite out of your brain

I am always hungry
Nothing tastes like food to me but

You are the realest thing
The realest thing
Inside the simulation
You are the realest thing
You’re the realest thing
Inside the simulation
Simulation

I took a leaf and
Crunched it up between my fingers
It disintegrated into nothing
Like it never was
I am afraid of also turning into nothing
Was there ever really something
Maybe not for us but

You are the realest thing
The realest thing
Inside the simulation
You are the realest thing
You’re the realest thing
Inside the simulation
Simulation

I don’t know if anyone exists outside my mind
But if they do
I hope it’s you
Delilah

You are the realest thing
You’re the realest thing
Inside the simulation
You are the realest thing
You’re the realest thing
Inside of my hallucination
You are the realest thing
The realest thing
The realest thing
Inside the simulation
Simulation
Ooh
(Simulation)

Written by Fenton on 22nd February 2026

Steve Fenton writes in our music, words, and culture categories. He was Editor in Chief for The Mag and covered live music for DV8 Magazine and Spill Magazine. He was often found in venues throughout the UK alongside ace-photographer, Mark Holloway. Steve is also a technical writer and programmer and writes gothic fiction. Steve studied Psychology at OSC, and Anarchy in the UK: A History of Punk from 1976-1978 at the University of Reading.

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