[Intro, shutter clicks, flash whine, crowd chant] Pics or it didn't happen! (click) Pics or it didn't happen! (click) [Verse 1, punchy double-time chopper, shutter-hit snares] Somebody tell me a story, I squint, sound like a stretch, then they pull out the phone, show the picture, and the argument's over, no defense, For most of history the past had two roads, somebody remembered or somebody wrote it, both of 'em people, could lie, could forget, could flatter, so you weighed it, Then a new kind of witness, a box with a lens, light go in, image come out, no opinion, no motive, no memory to drift, weddings, wars, passports, mugshots, the album, The photo didn't replace the human witness, it outranked 'em, no law said photos are true, didn't need one, a picture was evidence, video more, if there's footage, it happened, case stated, Made it a joke, pics or it didn't happen, that joke was a paradigm, a whole way of knowin' in five words, under courtrooms, newsrooms, insurance claims, who broke the lamp, nobody debated, It held 'cause of friction, they retouched it, cropped it, staged it, airbrushed it, but fakin' it well took the skill and the time and the gear and a reason, so the cost did the checkin'... [Hook, sung, descending melody, shutter-click echoes] Pics or it didn't happen (click, click), a paradigm in five words (five words), Seein' was believin' (believin'), the photo outranked the man (the man), Now the box got no lens (no lens), and the light never touched a thing (a thing), "I saw it with my own eyes" (own eyes)... nobody saw it happen... [Hook, fast chant] Snap, flash, case closed, nah, it's a claim now, it don't end the argument, it start one, Shutter, shutter, look, then ask, the picture can't answer for itself, so I ask... [Verse 2, cadence switch, colder storytelling chopper] A movin' video of somethin' that never happened, with sound, with weather, a crowd, out of reach for almost everybody alive, the difficulty graded it, you ain't have to, Assumin' it's real was a good bet, not a perfect bet, a good one, the kitchen table scaled to the world, and it don't just persuade you 'bout the world, it work on you too, Two thousand two, researchers pasted real childhood photos into a hot-air balloon ride that never happened, asked 'em to think on it over a few sessions, and ten out of twenty, the half, Came to report some memory, partial or complete, one doctored picture, a memory grew 'round it, the mind wanna agree with its witness, part of it packin' for a ride it never had... [Bridge, half-time, rain, eerie choir, rapped slow and low] There's a comic that runs with the book, a ruined square at night in the rain, and a crystal hangin' over the square, Inside, a faceless black silhouette, no name, no number, no colors, just the shape of a moment people wanted badly, A crowd holdin' glass shards up like phones, every shard reflectin' the shape, and the Seeker walk up with wet eyes: "I saw it with my own eyes," The Archivist step in the way, point down, under the crystal there's nothin', no stone, no root, nothin' tied to the ground: "Nobody saw it happen." [Verse 3, switch-up, fastest] What's a photo? Never the event, a trace, light that bounced off somethin' real, caught and fixed, a shadow, one step removed, you was handed the shadow and told what had cast it, It felt like intuition, felt like seein', it never was, it was borrowed history wearin' your eyes, then the box with the lens got a twin, a box with no lens, you type it, it's crafted, Light never bounced off of nothin', no shadow, 'cause nothin' ever stood in the sun, a picture of a photograph that was never taken, your eyes didn't get the memo, picture, therefore event, it lasted, Pooled studies, people spot deepfakes fifty-five and a half percent, a coin flip with a lean, can't look harder, lookin' was the old way, lookin' is what the fake was built to pass, What's in front of you is yours, but the picture of somewhere else is a claim now, a letter, a rumor, a stranger at the bus stop, it don't end the argument, it start it, so ask... [Hook, sung, descending, shutter echoes] Pics or it didn't happen (click, click), a paradigm in five words (five words), Seein' was believin' (believin'), the photo outranked the man (the man), Now the box got no lens (no lens), and the light never touched a thing (a thing), "I saw it with my own eyes" (own eyes)... nobody saw it happen... [Hook, fast chant] Snap, flash, case closed, nah, it's a claim now, it don't end the argument, it start one, Shutter, shutter, look, then ask, the picture can't answer for itself, so I ask... [Outro, slow shutter clicks, beat stops] Somebody pull out the phone and say "look" (look)... Look. Then ask what the picture can't answer for itself (itself)... Deduction, intuition, or borrowed... wearin' your eyes? (click)
