**Your True Name** [Intro – soft fingerpicked acoustic nylon guitar + distant warm Hammond] (fragile, almost whispered) They give you a name when you arrive… But that is never the one that remains. [Verse 1 – very quiet, fragile vocals] They wrote it in ink on a paper so thin They spoke it out loud so the world could begin They taught you to answer whenever it called But the true one was waiting, still hidden and small It lived in the places you never would look In the things that you did when nobody took In the choices you made when the lights had gone out It grew in the silence… and learned how to shout [Pre-Chorus – gentle swell] You wear the first name Like a coat that still fits But the real one is watching From under your skin [Chorus – still restrained, emotional] You never know your true name Until it’s too late You never know your true name Until the door won’t wait It comes when the mirrors Have nothing to say You never know your true name… Until it walks away [Verse 2 – quiet again, fragile] Some hear it in fever, some hear it in shame Some hear it the moment they bury a name It sounds like the voice you had buried for years It sounds like the truth you refused to let near And once it has spoken, the old one feels wrong Like a song you keep singing that no longer belongs You try to go back to the word that you knew But the true name has claimed every part that is you [Pre-Chorus – building slowly] You call to the past But the past doesn’t hear The true name is closer And colder, and clear [Chorus – heavier, overdriven Hammond entering] You never know your true name Until it’s too late You never know your true name Until the door won’t wait It comes when the mirrors Have nothing to say You never know your true name… Until it walks away [Bridge – quiet and fragile again] (soft, broken) I spoke it one night When the house was asleep It answered in silence Too heavy, too deep I tried to forget it I tried to go home… [Final Chorus – sudden hard and powerful] You never know your true name Until it’s too late! You never know your true name Until the weight is too great! It waits in the quiet It waits in the break You never know your true name… Until there’s no one left to take! [Outro – returning to fragile and quiet] (whisper) By the time you hear it… It’s already too late.
