[Intro — single piano note, close vocal] We remember the legacy and forget the casket. [Verse 1] Put my name on something permanent. Make sure somebody knows I came. Build a body of accomplishments that outlives my little name. Write the book. Build the company. Leave a mark they can't erase. Funny how I'm planning my remembrance while forgetting I'm here today. [Pre-Chorus] I keep asking what I'll leave behind. Maybe I should ask what I'm missing while I'm here. [Chorus] We remember the legacy and forget the casket. Spend a whole life trying to make something outlast it. But I won't be there to hear them say my name. So if I trade the living for the legacy, what exactly did I save? We remember the legacy and forget the casket. [Verse 2] Maybe they'll quote something I wrote. Maybe no one will remember. Maybe the hands that hold my book will never turn another page. Maybe my name makes history. Maybe history moves on. The sun will rise on someone's morning when every trace of me is gone. [Pre-Chorus] That's not tragic. That's permission. I don't need eternity. I need enough of this existence to actually belong to me. [Chorus] We remember the legacy and forget the casket. Spend a whole life trying to make something outlast it. But I won't be there to hear them say my name. So if I trade the living for the legacy, what exactly did I save? We remember the legacy and forget the casket. [Bridge — drums drop, warm piano] Maybe legacy isn't monuments. Maybe it isn't being known. Maybe it's a sentence someone carries that you forgot you ever said. Maybe it's how safe they felt when they were sitting in your kitchen. Maybe what survives us isn't what we planned but what we gave our attention. [Build — frame drums return, bowed strings rise] A name can last a thousand years and never know it did. I'd rather be completely here for one life while I live. [Final Chorus — full ensemble, layered communal vocals] Remember the legacy. Remember the casket. Build something beautiful. Just don't hide inside it. Let them say my name or let it fade. I don't need to live forever to have lived a life worth living. [pause] If I leave anything behind, let it be proof I was here before I left. [Outro — piano and vocal] We remember the legacy and forget the casket. [Beat] I don't want to be remembered more than I want to remember being alive.
