[Intro - open fifth harmonic drone, A and E, no rhythm, no melody, let it ring, voice enters alone against the drone before any instrumentation] [Verse 1 - A Mixolydian, common meter, sparse instrumentation enters, drone holds throughout] Grass grows through the factory floor The creek still finds its way The church bell rings on Sunday still But fewer every day [Verse 2 - A Mixolydian holding, shadow deepening, instrumentation thickening beneath the drone] Good hands that built the world sit still And nothing left to build A kindness came that fit the shape Until the hands were stilled [Verse 3 - A Mixolydian, road opening, drone still present beneath the movement] The road unrolled like a promise The valley fell behind Every mile unraveled something But not the ties that bind [Verse 4 - D Dorian begins bleeding in, anger building, key shift becoming audible] A contradiction in the cure They healed the wrong disease The mill and bank the selfsame beast That brought us to our knees [Bridge - full D Dorian, common meter releases, free verse, the decision] Counted all I'd built and found the bones familiar Each rung I climbed was someone's broken back No distance far enough to leave it clean The only clean thing left was home Build what feeds instead of feeding Walls that rise from honest roots The mountains don't forget their own The line is drawn in ancient ground [Final Verse - D Dorian, common meter returns, the arrival, purposeful] They took the steel and left the soil The creek still finds its way The new laid down on what remains To keep the dark at bay [Refrain - once, sparse, almost spoken, the drone alone beneath it] The hole they dug won't fill with gold The soul knows what the soil knows [Outro - drone returns to open fifth, A and E, instruments fall away one by one, drone holds, fades but does not resolve, the mountains continue]
