[Intro] A name is not a spell until someone answers. [Verse 1] Morning washes through the city. People hurry through the rain. No one sees the faded letters Written underneath the paint. Names on bracelets, names in margins, Names cut deep beneath a seat. Everywhere a life has touched us, Something stays beneath our feet. [Pre-Chorus] Some came home. Some never could. None were empty. None were nothing. [Chorus] These are the names we keep When the photographs turn white, Names we carry through the city, Names we whisper through the night. If forgetting is the doorway, Then remembrance is the key. They can take the proof around us, Not the names we choose to keep. [Verse 2] One name rests beneath the city Where the final clock went still. One sleeps safely down the hallway. One is written on the sill. One remains inside a mother’s arm That reached before she knew. One survives because a sister Would not let the lie come true. [Pre-Chorus] Not a number. Not a file. Not an empty room rewritten. Every name Was someone here. Every silence once was living. [Chorus] These are the names we keep When the photographs turn white, Names we carry through the city, Names we whisper through the night. If forgetting is the doorway, Then remembrance is the key. They can take the proof around us, Not the names we choose to keep. [Bridge] Say them without turning backward. Say them without opening the door. Memory does not mean returning To the place that hurt us before. Write them where the rain can touch them. Speak them though the sound is brief. Love is not an endless haunting. Love is choosing what we keep. [Final Chorus – ensemble] These are the names we keep When the walls have all gone bare, Names that make the empty visible, Names that prove that someone cared. If forgetting is the doorway, We will never give the key. They may take the world around us. Not the names we choose to keep. These are the names we keep. These are the lives we knew. The darkness cannot make them nothing While one voice still says: I remember you. [Outro] Noah. James. We remember.
