FUTURE CUSTOMER [Intro — fingerpicked acoustic guitar, faint electric swell, soft kick] First bottle I ever had, I stole. Fifteen years old, nowhere near grown. Too young to buy it, old enough to know exactly which label I wanted. Funny what a kid can know. [Verse 1 — intimate vocal, acoustic guitar, rimshot, warm bass] Fluorescent lights in a corner store, candy racks by the sliding door. Cigarettes sleeping behind the clerk, beer signs glowing in red and blue. Every bottle had a color. Every color had a name. I hadn't tasted half of them, but I knew them just the same. Camera looking the other way. Bottle underneath my coat. Heart beating like a getaway car. Nobody stopped me at the door. [Pre-Chorus — drums begin building] And I remember thinking, Man, that was easy. Years later I started wondering— Why did I know what to steal? [Chorus — big country-pop lift, electric guitars, stacked harmonies] Too young to buy it, old enough to know the brand. Too young to understand it, old enough to hold it in my hand. Nobody had to sell it to me. They'd been teaching me all along. I thought I stole my first bottle— maybe the bottle already knew where I belonged. I wasn't worth a dollar yet. Just a future customer. [Verse 2 — stronger beat, subtle 808 beneath acoustic drums] Then came cigarettes and gasoline, cowboys riding across TV screens. Fast cars. Pretty girls. Neon freedom. Every poison had a dream wrapped around it. Drink this, you'll be fearless. Smoke this, you'll be grown. Buy this and become somebody you haven't even known. We were trying on identities before we knew what habits cost. Looking for ourselves inside the things that knew how to get us lost. [Pre-Chorus] They didn't need me drinking when I was fifteen. They only needed me to remember the name. [Chorus — bigger] Too young to buy it, old enough to know the brand. Too young to understand it, old enough to hold it in my hand. Nobody had to sell it to me. They'd been teaching me all along. I thought I stole my first bottle— maybe the bottle already knew where I belonged. I wasn't worth a dollar yet. Just a future customer. [Verse 3 — strip back to acoustic, close vocal] Years went by. The kid got older. The bottle somehow stayed the same. I got sober once. Coffee. Meetings. Counting every single day. One month. Six months. One whole year. Thought I'd finally killed the ghost. Then came one bad night, one old familiar voice: You already know what works. And there I was. Same hand. Same label. Twenty years after that store. Nobody needed advertising. It was already living behind the door. [Bridge — half-time drums, atmospheric electric guitar] Those were my hands. Those were my choices. I won't hand my sins away. But don't tell me nobody studied how a frightened kid behaves. Don't tell me colors mean nothing. Don't tell me placement doesn't count. You spend a billion learning what we'll reach for— then blame us when we can't put it down. [Build] They never needed me drunk at fifteen. They just needed me to remember. Because children— children grow up. [Final Chorus — full band, biggest vocal] Too young to buy it, old enough to know the brand. Too young to see the hook, old enough to take its hand. You never had to force me. You only had to make it shine. Put freedom on the bottle and let the years do the rest in time. I thought I stole my first bottle. God, I thought I'd gotten away. But I was a future customer before I ever paid. [Post-Chorus — stacked harmony] Future customer. Before I ever paid. Future customer. Before I knew the game. [Outro — acoustic guitar, pedal-steel-like electric swell] First bottle I ever had, I stole. Years later I finally understood. They got their money anyway.
