[Intro] I told y'all at the top the water took our house. That ain't the whole of it. Storm come in on a Tuesday. Everybody said it'd turn. Everybody always says it'll turn. Mama loaded four of us in the truck. Went to Houma to my aunt's. Daddy stayed. Said somebody's got to watch the boat. Boat was the only thing we had that made money. Water come up twenty-nine feet in about four hours. I've heard people say that number like it's weather. It ain't weather. It's a two-story house. It's a man standin' on his own roof watchin' the thing he stayed for float off without him. They found the boat. Found it forty miles inland, sittin' in a field, hardly a scratch on it. Reporters took a picture of it. Ran it in the paper. Little miracle, they said. They never found him. [Verse 1] Twenty-nine feet of Gulf come in Twenty-nine feet and it never went out It's still in the walls, it's still in my skin It's what I'm made of, it's what I'm about They dried the parish, they cleared the road They put the church back up in a year But the water come in and it never went out And I have carried it here [Chorus] And the boat come home And the man did not And the paper called it a miracle And that's all we got So don't tell me what the Lord give Don't tell me what He spared I know the number. Twenty-nine feet. And I know He was there [Verse 2] She don't sing this one in every town (Some rooms it don't belong) Some nights she gets a verse in and puts it down (Some nights I get it wrong) But there's a whole coast full of empty chairs (And a whole lot got it worse) And somebody's got to say the number out loud (So I'll say it in a verse) [Chorus] And the boat come home And the man did not And the paper called it a miracle And that's all we got So don't tell me what the Lord give Don't tell me what He spared I know the number. Twenty-nine feet. And I know He was there [Bridge] Y'all sing that low part with me. Don't need words. Just hold it. That's it. That's the sound. That's what it sounded like out there after. Not the storm. After. Everybody just — holdin' a note. Waitin' to see who else was still singin'. [Chorus] And the boat come home! And the man did not! And the paper called it a miracle And that's all we got! So don't tell me what the Lord give Don't tell me what He spared — I know the number. Twenty-nine feet. And I know He was there. [Outro] Daddy. That's for you.
