[singer A] Gas fees high, cost of living hit the ceiling, American Dream’s a busted bus at 3:15, idling. Picket fence rusted, white collar got choked, While billionaires gamble on the futures we broke. They fractionalize hope on a Layer 2 chain, Inflation the shadow that numbs out the pain. The subway turnstile swallows all my change, Leaving just the echo of a debt exchange. So I plug into code, build the future from scratch, Open-source spirit that the matrix can't catch. [transition] [singer B] I stepped out the haze with a face like rent due Thirty-seven winters, still hard to offend you They talk big math, I talk bad luck receipts My pockets got holes but my pride got seats I read the room like a mugshot novel Every smile look borrowed, every promise look hostile I’m a cold case file with a warm little grin One foot in the gutter, one foot in the wind [pre-chorus] Everybody got a theory, nobody got proof I been on the edge so long it started feeling cute I could sell a moonrock to a room full of skeptics Then laugh at the ledger like, "Who really checked it?" [chorus] I’m the joke they can’t decode Cold case soul, hot coat Laugh so hard, I might float Still broke, still woke I’m the joke they can’t decode Old pain, fresh road Smiling like I know What they don’t know [transition] [singer A] They prime the nightly news with a ghost across the sea, Paint a distant foreign flag as the ultimate enemy. Keep the panic button primed, keep the volume on red, Feeding manufactured terror straight into the public head. Wanna keep us falling inward, keep us pointing out a threat, While we're drowning in the quicksand of an engineered debt. Yeah, they wave the saber high, screaming 'bout a foreign state, When the monsters in our pockets are the ones we navigate. See, Americans ain't shaking at the shadow in Tehran, We’re terrified of waking up and seeing what we owe man. It’s that eight-percent compounding on a twenty-year degree, For a piece of sheepskin paper that just certified the bleed. You got deans in marble offices collecting heavy checks, While a twenty-something server’s drowning out their existential stress. Student loans got us paralyzed, trapped inside a cage, Signing papers as a teenager, paying till old age. And health insurance? Man, that’s the final robbery, A bureaucratic nightmare wrapped in corporate mockery. Pay a monthly premium to get a stamped denial, Pre-existing conditions buried underneath a file. You get sick in the land of the free and wealthy brave, And they bill you for the room right before they dig the grave. [melodic transition] [singer B] I seen kings in cheap chains act rich for the night Wake up with a headache and a borrowed highlight They preach like prophets with a dirty little grin Then panic when the bill for the truth rolls in I keep my ethics in a paper cup Half full, half "what the hell, give it up" I’m a poet with receipts and a crooked gold tooth Every hard truth funny when it gets too loose They said "build your future," so I built me a fence Around my bad ideas and my common sense Now the wolves at the gate want a quote, want a name I gave them a shrug and a punchline with shame [chorus] I’m the joke they can’t decode Cold case soul, hot coat Laugh so hard, I might float Still broke, still woke I’m the joke they can’t decode Old pain, fresh road Smiling like I know What they don’t know [transition] [singer A] So cut the geopolitical scare tactics on the screen, That’s just smoke and mirrors for the modern guillotine. We ain’t scared of foreign borders or the boogeymen they paint, We’re just trying to survive the things that made the system faint. Cold Case style—looking right past the mask, Unmasking the machinery is the ultimate task.
