In the middle of summer 2026 — while the world outside grew louder and hotter and less certain of itself — Andrzej Citowicz sat down in his home studio in Cairo and finished a song that had been pressing against the inside of his chest for a very long time.
The result is By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human — the first official single from Acoustism, the forthcoming album from Citovitz and The Fireflies of February, scheduled for release in autumn 2026. The single is available now on all major streaming platforms. An official lyric video is available on YouTube.
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/698xSMmEbCk?si=FoJlcBkMDw4PWqpM
It is one of the most direct, most unflinching, and most necessary pieces of music Andrzej has ever released.
THE WORLD THAT MADE THIS SONG
There are songs that arrive from craft. And there are songs that arrive from necessity — from the specific pressure of living through a moment in history that demands a response. By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human is the second kind entirely.
The lyric does not soften its diagnosis. It looks at what modern civilisation has done to itself — the trading of truth for comfort, love for pride, humanity for the kind of progress that turns out to be organised sinking — and it refuses to look away. Every generation reaches farther, the second verse observes, finding less within its reach. It is the most concise summary of the modern condition Andrzej has ever compressed into a single line.
"The mirror never lied to us — we simply learned to celebrate."
— from By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human
But the song is not nihilism. It is grief — which is an entirely different thing. Grief implies that something worth mourning was lost. That the person doing the grieving once knew what it felt like to be more than what they have become. The chorus does not condemn so much as mourn. And the outro — perhaps the most quietly devastating lines Andrzej has ever written — does not end in accusation but in hope worn thin:
"If tomorrow still remembers us — let it remember we tried."
— from By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human
That line, Andrzej says, arrived last. And when it did, he knew the song was complete.
"I did not write this song to point fingers. I wrote it because I looked around at the summer of 2026 — at everything the world was carrying, at everything my own life had been through in the past year — and I needed to say something true. Something that did not flinch. This is that song."
— Andrzej Citowicz
THE SOUND: WHERE ALTER BRIDGE MEETS UNPLUGGED BON JOVI
Musically, By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human exists in a space that Andrzej has been approaching his entire career but has never quite occupied so completely until now. The acoustic version carries the intimacy and emotional weight of the great unplugged rock tradition — Bon Jovi's MTV Unplugged performances, the raw confessional energy of a guitar placed directly against a lyric with nowhere to hide. Clean, wide open, and devastating in its simplicity.
"The acoustic version asks you to sit with the words. Some people need the quiet to hear clearly…"
— Andrzej Citowicz
ACOUSTISM: THE ALBUM THAT IS COMING
By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human is the first window into Acoustism — the most ambitious and most personal album Andrzej Citowicz has ever announced. Due for release in autumn 2026, the album is built around the intersection of Andrzej's acoustic guitar work and his identity as a person on the autism spectrum — his ICD-11 diagnostic code, 6A02, has already given its name to one of the album's tracks — alongside songs that document the extraordinary personal journey of the past twelve months.
A life-changing year. The loss of a beloved friend and mentor — H — whose memory lives inside the For The Hawk album released earlier in 2026. The discovery of an adult daughter, Esther, whose arrival Andrzej describes simply as a miracle beyond imagination. The grief. The gratitude. The bittersweet, overwhelming experience of finding that life, in its fifties, still has the capacity to rearrange everything you thought you understood about yourself.
All of that is inside Acoustism. By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human is its opening declaration — the song that sets the emotional and philosophical stakes for everything that follows.
"This album is unlike anything I have made before. Not because I planned it that way. Because life made it that way. I am a different person than I was twelve months ago. The music had no choice but to reflect that."
— Andrzej Citowicz
ANDRZEJ CITOWICZ: THE LIVING ROOM ROCKSTAR
Born in WaÅ‚brzych, Poland, and now based in Cairo, Egypt, guitarist and songwriter Andrzej Citowicz has spent his career building one of the most quietly determined independent music projects in contemporary rock. Recording under the name Citovitz and The Fireflies of February, he operates entirely without label support — writing, performing, producing, mixing, and mastering from his home studio, with Suno AI serving as his virtual band alongside his own guitar work and the lyrical contributions of his wife, Shereen Shoukry Citowicz.
His musical DNA runs deep in the classic rock and power ballad tradition — Bon Jovi's New Jersey and Blaze of Glory eras, Def Leppard's Hysteria and Adrenalize, Desmond Child's songwriting architecture, the neo-classical guitar vocabulary of Joe Satriani's The Extremist. These are not influences he has moved on from. They are the foundation everything else is built on — and By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human demonstrates exactly what that foundation looks like when it is carrying the full weight of a life examined honestly.
2026 has been Andrzej's most prolific and most personal year to date. Beautiful Damage: 1990–1996 — released April 13th — completed songs written between the ages of 14 and 20, discovered on old tape cassettes. For The Hawk — released May 4th, Star Wars Day — honoured the memory of a beloved friend and mentor. And now Acoustism arrives in autumn, carrying everything the year has taught him about loss, identity, love, and what it means to still be here.
"The guitar is always first. It has always been first. Modern technology helps me build what I hear around it. But what I hear — I have been hearing since the early 1990s. That has never changed. And it never will."
— Andrzej Citowicz
SINGLE & ALBUM DETAILS
Single: By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human
Versions: Acoustic Version
Music, Guitars & Lyrics: Andrzej Citowicz
Available: All major streaming platforms — now
Lyric Video: YouTube — now
Album: Acoustism — Autumn 2026
Artist: Citovitz and The Fireflies of February
STREAM & WATCH
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrzejCitowicz
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7aIeg5DyI7xwkYLsBgJNWf
Instagram: https://instagram.com/citovitz
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/citovitz/
By The Time You Die, You're Barely Human — Out Now
First Single from Acoustism — Coming Autumn 2026
Citovitz and The Fireflies of February
℗© 2026 Citovitz and The Fireflies of February / Andrzej Citowicz