[Intro – lone bodhrán heartbeat, low pub murmur, one guy coughs, glass clinks] [spoken, barman, distant: "last orders, lads"] Once upon a hill I faltered, dust-begrimed and sorrow-altered, staring up that stone cathedral where my every hope had died — there I knelt with knuckles bleeding, breath gone shallow, spirit pleading, something deeper, something rising, woke inside. [spoken, patron, mildly: "oh god he's off again"] [Verse 1 – accordion enters tentatively, fiddle joins, pub still chatting underneath] Came a drum into my ribcage, slow and steady, low and ancient, beat a rhythm older, wilder, than the doubt I'd known before — every scar I wore like armor, every fall that made me smaller, every whisper of you're finished was a lie, and nothing more. [spoken, barman: "mate. mate. you've been on that stool since four"] [Pre-Chorus – tin whistle lifts, a few boots reluctantly start tapping] When the doubt came dressed as certain, drawing tight its heavy curtain, trying hard to steal my name and stitch my silence to the door — I did not retreat in whispers, did not bow before the whispers, did not let the cold insisters hold the keys to what I'm for. [Chorus – three or four pub voices half-heartedly join, one guy comes in a beat late] One more time — I give it motion. One more time — I cross the ocean. There is nothing to the doing but the leaning, but the through — right here standing, right now breathing, I'm the tempest, I'm the seething, I'm the promise I've been keeping, and there's nothing left to do. Get your shoulder to the doing. One breath in, and move on through it. [spoken, patron: "what ocean? we're in Stoke"] [Verse 2 – fiddle tightens, more voices joining despite themselves, bodhrán heavier] All the cannots stacked before me, all the cowards come to warn me, all the patient little doubters sitting judge upon my name — [spoken, patron, defensive: "oi"] let them choke on their opinions, let them rot inside their prisons, I am done with begging permission from the architects of shame. Sweat is salt across my forehead, dust is war paint on my shoulders, every step I take is answer to the question are you through — no. The fear has finished talking. Only fight is left here walking. I am standing. I am stalking. I am coming. I am due. [spoken, barman, resigned: "he's not leaving is he"] [Short Instrumental – fiddle and accordion finding each other, boots stomping properly now, pub getting into it against its will] [Verse 3 – snarled, mountain pivot, half the pub now leaning in] So the mountain still is standing, still indifferent, still demanding, still the same cold stone cathedral that it was the day I knelt — but the thing that knelt below it is no longer who you know it, is no longer broken bowing to the weight it used to feel. I have buried every version of the man who could not move, and the dust upon my shoulders is the dust of what I prove. [spoken, patron, quietly impressed: "...that's actually quite good"] [Bridge – stomps and claps building, pub fully committed now, tin whistle trills over top] Say I can — and mean the saying. Say I will — and end the praying. Say it till the mountain trembles, say it till the silence breaks — every pulse inside this ribcage is a war the quiet started, every fall I ever swallowed sharpened what I am today. [spoken, whole pub, ragged: "OI!"] [Final Chorus – full pub roaring, every instrument, drunken harmonies, genuine joy] One more time — I give it motion. One more time — I cross the ocean. Punch on through — right here stomping, right now freeing, I'm the tempest, I'm the seething, I'm the promise I've been keeping, and there's nothing left to do. Get off your arse and do it. Just breathe once, and break on through it. [Outro – accordion driving, fiddle wailing, whole pub chanting, boots stomping, pints raised] One more time — the drum is calling. One more try — the walls are falling. One more breath — the dust is rising — and I rise. And I rise. And I rise. [spoken, barman, defeated, fond: "right. one more then you're all out."] (final stomp, glass smash, cheer)
