By Cecily Renns johnjrenns Bandcamp user-621444340 SoundCloud YouTube YouTube CecilyRenns Twitter johnjrenns Twitter CecilyRenns Patreon ← "Cool/New" in F Major, Op. 72 Previous track by this artist, featuring Kasane Teto.
Released 7/2/2026.
Duration: 3:18.

Listen on Bandcamp.

Read artist commentary.
Read referencing sources.

Tracks that When the Gods Awake (feat. Kasane Teto) references:

• Homestuck Anthem by Clark Powell
• Sunsetter by Toby Fox
• Sungazer by Cecily Renns
• Sburban Jungle by Michael Guy Bowman

Lyrics:

It's a new age
The note that desolation plays
I never thought it'd come to this
The things I miss

When our lives are mere playthings
Then how are you supposed to keep on going?
And it just keeps on rowing

When the gods awake
And you don't know what to do
You just have to learn to deal with the emptiness
When your life is preordained and nothing matters
You take each day, one tomorrow at a time
And one day we can make the climb

Artist commentary for When the Gods Awake (feat. Kasane Teto):

Cecily Renns ✑

Perhaps the ACTUAL oldest song in the album? I wrote a Homestuck fanfic a long time ago named When the Gods Awake that you can still find on fanfiction.net. That's also when I came up with the song. The idea of "When the Gods Awake" and this name for a song comes from when I was writing Rain, my second CANMT solo album. Back then, I had the idea for a song, with a chorus that goes like "When the gods awake / And you don't know what to do / You just step right up / And buckle in for a ride" I never ended up using those last two lines, but I revisited the idea a few times, under the name "Sungazer" which was going to become a Sunsetter (Ska) cover. This was going to be submitted for Lands of Fans and Music Act 5 Act 2, but I stopped being friends with the vocalist who was going to perform this song. Rather than finding a replacement, I began workshopping several different new iterations of the song, with the final version becoming this, a revisit of the When the Gods Awake concept. I was going to find a vocalist, but I used Kasane Teto as a temp vocal track and she sounded so good that I ended up leaving her in the track. In a classic "Ships of Theseus" style (or perhaps Moons of Theseus?), this song has no resemblance to the original 2018 song idea at all, but the core themes remain the same: I wanted to explore how the inhahbitants of Earth C would really react when our main characters arrive there. I mean, the idea of your own deities coming to your society and uprooting the current structure of government you already had for 5000 years to rule as kings is.... sort of existentially terrifying. I was always weirded out by this plot development in the Credits.

bunnysoryu ✑

i think teto is a prospit dreamer 🥖 🌙

Referencing sources for When the Gods Awake (feat. Kasane Teto): Referencing sources for When the Gods Awake (feat. Kasane Teto)…

7/9/2026with respect to this album —
about 7 days later Cecily Renns ✑ HSMusic Discord

When the Gods Awake contain no parts of Sunsetter Ska, however it does contain original melodic elements from Sungazer