[INTRO] [Heart monitor] Beep Beep Beep [Soprano] Father Where are you God Where are you [FINISH HIM] [VERSE 1] They call a man deadbeat when his child know the silence better than his voice Birthday came empty chair Mama made a choice Don't speak bad about your father So I learned him through avoidance Photograph surname bills he never joined us Funny First prayer I remember started same way Our Father Had me looking at the ceiling like which one The one in heaven or the one that went away Both invisible both powerful Both had nothing much to say Tell me God What does a son inherit from absence A hole Or architecture built around what never happened Got blood from men I never got instructions from Learned manhood watching women do what fathers should've done [FINISH HIM] Wait I'm not finished [VERSE 2] Adam had a Father still hid among the leaves First son of creation already learning shame and grief Who told you you were naked Question for the ages Who taught sons to hide the wound then hand the hiding down in stages Abraham heard God say take the boy you waited for Isaac carried wood uphill beside the man he trusted most Imagine being son enough to ask Where is the sacrifice Imagine being father with a blade and calling terror faith in life Angel said stop But did anybody ask Isaac what he dreamed that night Did his body hear the blessing or remember how the knife caught light [FLATLINE] [FINISH HIM] [DROP] [HOOK] DEAD BEAT I BEEN LISTENING FOR YOUR HEART DEAD BEAT I BEEN LOVING THROUGH THE DARK FATHER FATHER WHERE ARE YOU If I'm made in your image WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO DEAD BEAT Blood keep talking when the mouth don't speak DEAD BEAT Whole bloodline inside of me [VERSE 3] Father Time ain't raise nobody still he take us all to school Every wrinkle every funeral teaching what the clock can do Grandfather great grandfather names disappearing in records Some were free some weren't some owned nothing but the effort Some carried gods across an ocean some had gods imposed Some survived by going silent now that silence wear my clothes Founders called themselves fathers Father of a nation Whose children got inheritance Whose children got plantations Whose blood became the mortar Whose names escaped the pages A country got a bloodline too nations inherit what they won't face When I say my father's missing I ain't talking one man only I'm talking generations teaching boys BE STRONG while leaving lonely Pain with no confession becomes tradition Shame gets disciplined into religion Trauma learns your last name then calls itself inheritance [HOOK] DEAD BEAT I BEEN LISTENING FOR YOUR HEART DEAD BEAT I BEEN LOVING THROUGH THE DARK FATHER FATHER WHERE ARE YOU If I'm made in your image WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO [VERSE 4] Here's the confession I became somebody's silence too Judged every empty chair counting what they didn't do not what I do That's bloodline shit Mirror get cruel when the accusation fits Easy calling out the ghost harder asking where I learned his tricks How many times love needed presence and I sent philosophy How many times somebody needed me I gave possibility How many wounds I called my freedom How much distance I called peace How many people paid the interest on a debt they didn't lease God I been prosecuting fathers with my own hands unclean Wanting mercy for the child judgment for the man he'd be Maybe both of them are me Maybe that's the family tree Root drinking ancient sorrow fruit asking WHO PLANTED ME [BREAKDOWN] Be
