[Instrumental Intro, dark choir, tolling bell, sliding 808s] [Verse 1, relentless double-time chopper, percussive] Start with the date at the top of your phone, on the check, on the lease, on the birth certificate, never once did you question it, Counted from somebody, not the first fire, the first city, the first word written, one birth, figured centuries later by one monk at a table he was fixin', He was schedulin' Easter, a holiday keeper, not datin' the ages, then it spread and it stuck, now it's stamped on the wages, B.C., Before Christ, A.D., they told me "after death," I believed it for years, nothin' corrected it, never once did I check it, It's Latin, Anno Domini, "in the year of the Lord," wasn't death, it was Lord, I was wrong and I swore it, I stored it, ignored it, I served in the Marines, at awards and promotions they read from the podium, date at the end, "in the year of our Lord," every time, every ceremony, honestly, Felt funny, a little out of place, a little older than the room, I never questioned it, nobody there ever thought where the words came from, Then a quieter label took hold in the schools, C.E., Common Era, same years, same numbers, same startin' line, they just stopped sayin' "Lord" out loud... [Verse 1 continued, cadence switch, harder] They changed the name! They kept the count! Nobody asked where the count came from, nobody re-measured, the grid stayed, the sticker got swapped, and we hummin' along, Go outside, look up, the moon does one thing, dark into full into dark, you can watch it yourself, a real month, nobody explain it, Look at your calendar, thirty, thirty-one, twenty-eight, the months don't match the moon, twelve moons never fill up a sun, the math never close, so they patched up the line, Stretched some, cut one short, added a day every few years, the moon is honest, the sun too, the grid you lay over them is a decision, somebody chose it, Manufactured time, ain't vague, ain't personal, built, not found, not a conspiracy, a house, somebody laid the beams, we moved in, stopped lookin' down, Phase-locked, the bank, the doctor, the phone, your grandmother's Bible, your kid's report card, all of it synced, you can't leave, try payin' your rent in moons... [Hook, sung, descending melody, call-and-response echoes] In the year of our Lord (our Lord), they read it at the podium (podium), Anno Domini (Domini), a monk was countin' Easter (Easter), They changed the name (the name), but they kept the count (the count), Is this deduction, intuition, or potentially corrupted borrowed history? [Hook, fast chant] Grid on the sky, count on the clock, sticker got switched but the number did not, phase-locked, phase-locked, Handed it, handed it, never once checked it, the moon is honest, the grid is a decision... [Verse 2, melodic sing-song chopper bounce, harmonized] It feel like the floor, it feel like the weather, but it's built and it's handed, we planned on it, landed on it, livin' in it, Birthdays and rent days and school years, the day you was born and the day that they carve on the stone, the house that we livin' in, You didn't check, you was handed it, same move, exact same, borrowed history in the doorway with a different name, Hold that feelin' from the podium, a little bit funny, a little bit older, we gon' need it, the grid and the sky ain't the same, [Verse 2 continued, switch-up, fastest] When it's true, the lock is a gift, billions in step who never once met, when it's corrupted, it's a trap, everything downstream synced to the error, and set, How do you know anything? Deduction, it follows, intuition, you see it, "I am here," nobody hand you that, Borrowed history, somebody told you, most of what anyone know walk in on the third, and the date walked in on us, None of it mean trust nothin', the moon still real, the calendar useful, I just know what it is, a house, built, inherited, phase-locked, movin' through it, The monk picked his startin' line, somebody picked "Common," somebody always pick, this time I watch the line get drawn, and I'm checkin' it quick, The next date, the next clip, the next fact everybody seem to know, don't ask if it feel true, feelin' is how it got in, so I ask it slow... [Hook, sung, descending, echoes] In the year of our Lord (our Lord), they read it at the podium (podium), Anno Domini (Domini), a monk was countin' Easter (Easter), They changed the name (the name), but they kept the count (the count), Is this deduction, intuition, or potentially corrupted borrowed history? [Hook, fast chant] Grid on the sky, count on the clock, sticker got switched but the number did not, phase-locked, phase-locked, Handed it, handed it, never once checked it, the moon is honest, the grid is a decision... [Outro, beat rides out, stops] Is this deduction, intuition, or potentially corrupted borrowed history?
