[Intro] (organ swell) [Verse 1] (softly, spoken-sung) This salt is for your sinigang, apo This one cooked in a clay pot whole Asin tibuok, the unbroken kind Coconut ash and a fire's slow toll [Pre-Chorus] (building) Forty nights the upper half flies The lower half waits where you lay it down Home before the sun clears the rim Or a woman of the line is never found [Chorus] (choir enters, belted) Stay in the salt, padaba, stay in the salt It guards the half you lay down, the body you leave Every night you go out, every morning you are whole Luway-luway, apo. Learn, and believe [Verse 2] (softly) I draw your cut closed against the crust And the closing costs, it costs the one who holds A candle pays for its light by growing short I have a thumb's worth less than I had, I am told [Bridge] (choir, powerful) A choice is more than Remedios had A choice is more than your mother was shown I came down the mountain in forty-seven To hand you a door with your own name grown [Chorus] (full choir) Stay in the salt, padaba, stay in the salt Bind the wing and live, or come apart in two And if two halves are bound to a heart that holds The dawn loses its claim. That is the mercy on you. [Outro] (a cappella) Luway-luway. Salt is for tonight. [End]
