[Intro] A dot Teller [Verse 1] September rain shapes the sons. The sky just decides I'm at the window — same vantage where my whole life resides Bucket fills. Alley runs. Older than the tides The permanence they file under heritage Three boys close-knit, phone held up like a shrine Speaker bleeding through the rain — somebody's hook on the line Took me a beat to clock it. That hook is mine Kid don't know the bike, the chain, the climb. That's by design Phone hums on the sill. Mama — calling about nothing Voice of a hymn — hò, hò, hò — three syllables humming Says her father pounded rice — foot mortar drumming His father before him — count older than any border Three beats. Never four — that's the math of the breath Down. Lift. Breath. Older than every empire's death Twelve stakes in a row he angled with the current That parentage I never saw — still an undercurrent [Chorus] Heritage ain't the photograph it's who outlives the epitaph Three beats. Never four. Down. Lift. Breath The count outlives death [Verse 2] No deed. No degree. No dynasty No privilege in this lineage. No clergy — no piety just stakes in a river and a hum counting three Just a mother on the phone — what her father passed to me Average son of an average alley, taking the long way Salvaged from every empire that tried to file me the wrong way Empires kept filing us under another name Count don't ask who won — we kept the hò the same They came for the rice, the gold — the alphabet, the river Couldn't pillage the untold. Three beats live in my mother They nearly burned it out of the mouth — missed the breath Three beats, never four — that's how a language outlasts death Disparage me, I'm a vestige. But the hò she carries — that, you don't disparage Vintage mic, vintage pen, vintage pain same alley, same rain — same count my grandfather sang Four for the empire. Three for the heritage [Chorus] Heritage ain't the photograph it's who outlives the epitaph Three beats. Never four. Down. Lift. Breath The count outlives death [Bridge] The boy in the AC net was tillage The kid who sealed the letter was tillage The shadow in the frosted glass was tillage None of it was wreckage. All of it was lineage Bones with a kid on his bike — that's lineage Cardboard lady — no neighbor learned her name — that's lineage A school bag thrown out on moving day — that's lineage I pulled the chair out. Grandfather pulled it out first [Verse 3] Daughter leans her head against the windowpane Asks: ba ơi, ai dạy mấy đứa kia hát vậy? The question's the refrain I say: probably someone with no degree — best left unknown Don't tell her it's me. The chair's already shown Three beats — that's how he left it Four thousand years — that's how we kept it I'm not the wreckage. The block has its voice I'm the vestige. Three beats by choice [CLOSER] I don't know the names of the men whose stakes are still in the river I don't need to The river knows I add my three beats and the count keeps going without my permission The way it always has The way it always will [OUTRO] Hò. Hò. Hò Hò. Hò. Hò Hò. Hò. Hò
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