[Hook] (sparse, restrained, voice and piano) This is what the fire left — just the smoke and the bone, just a girl in the ashes of a life she used to own Didn't leave me much to stand on, didn't leave me much at all — just what the fire left, just what the fire left But you can't burn what's underneath, can't torch it to the ground, 'cause the thing beneath the ashes is the thing the fire found — this is what the fire left, the truest part it left [Verse 1] Walked back through the wreckage of the everything I was, every room I built on sand, every reason, every cause And the smoke was still rising off the places I called home, off the version of myself I was so scared to lose alone But I knelt down in the cinders and I sifted with my hands, and beneath the burned-down everything I found out where I stand — 'cause the fire took the surface but it couldn't reach the seed, and the ash became the soil for the realest part of me [Pre-Hook] (soft, building) So I'm standing in the after with the soot across my face, counting all the things I lost and all the things it couldn't erase — and what's left is what was real… it's what the fire left [Hook] This is what the fire left — just the smoke and the bone, just a girl in the ashes of a life she used to own Didn't leave me much to stand on, didn't leave me much at all — just what the fire left, just what the fire left But you can't burn what's underneath, can't torch it to the ground, 'cause the thing beneath the ashes is the thing the fire found — this is what the fire left, the truest part it left [Verse 2] They told me fire only takes, only ruins, only ends, that there's nothing on the far side but the ash the wind suspends But I've seen what burning does to the gold beneath the stone — it don't kill the thing that's precious, it just strips it to the bone Every lie I'd built around me, every mask I had to wear, went up like it was paper in a heat I couldn't bear — and the smoke cleared off the surface and revealed what wouldn't burn: the one thing that was always true beneath the lessons I had to learn [Pre-Hook] So I'm standing in the after with the soot across my face, counting all the things I lost and all the things it couldn't erase — and what's left is what was real… it's what the fire left [Bridge] (half-time, soft harmonies and organ entering — still no big drums) Burn it down (burn it down), let it go (let it go) Everything that wasn't built to last, the fire had to know Burn it down (burn it down), what's left is true — everything that wasn't real went up into the blue (the fire made it new… the fire made it new…) [Verse 3] (opens slightly — more air, hope creeping in) So don't you fear the burning if it takes the thing you fake, don't you mourn the falling of the house you couldn't make 'cause the ground that's left when everything you propped up falls away is the only ground that's solid, is the only place to stay I'm not standing in the ashes like a girl who lost it all, I'm standing on the bedrock that survived the rise and fall — and the green is coming slow now through the black of all I lost, 'cause the ash became the cradle for the thing that's worth the cost [Final Hook] (fuller now — 808s finally enter, but still controlled, not exploding) This is what the fire left — and it's more than I could see, just the truest, deepest, realest, unburned part of me Took the everything I built but it couldn't take it all — 'cause what the fire left, what the fire left, is the thing I couldn't lose and the thing I couldn't fake, the foundation underneath that the heat could never break — this is what the fire left, and the fire set it free [Outro] (settles back to a whisper — piano and reverb, bleeding toward the next track) This is where it starts… in what's left… in what the fire couldn't take… this is what the fire left
