[Intro] (whispered, breathy, over minor piano — single notes) They kept asking what was holding me together… I didn't have an answer… just a thread… [Hook] (soft, aching — restrained) I was hanging by a thread, just a thin little line, wanted something like a rope but a thread's all I could find Kept on bracing for the snap that never came — but the thread held, the thread held Everybody swore there's no way it could take the strain, one fraying strand against the dark and all the weight and rain — but the thread held, oh, the thread held [Verse 1] (intimate, conversational, building) I could see it when I looked up, just a single fragile line, and I cursed it for not being something stronger, something kind 'Cause a thread's no kind of mercy when you're dangling in the black, when the whole of what you are is hanging helpless off its back So I waited for the giving, waited for the final fray, counted every thinning fiber, sure that this would be the day — but the morning kept on coming and the thread kept holding on, and I couldn't understand a thinness that refused to be gone [Pre-Hook] (swelling, more air in the voice) 'Cause I measured all its weakness, never measured what it's tied to, never looked up past the fraying to the hand I never knew — the thread was never the strong part… the strong part held the thread [Hook] (fuller now, opening up) I was hanging by a thread, just a thin little line, wanted something like a rope but a thread's all I could find Kept on bracing for the snap that never came — but the thread held, the thread held Everybody swore there's no way it could take the strain, one fraying strand against the dark and all the weight and rain — but the thread held, oh, the thread held [Verse 2] I'd have traded it for chains, for a cable, for a rope, for something I could trust to be the anchor of my hope But You never sent me thicker, never sent me something proved, You just kept the thin thing holding and You wouldn't let it move And I learned it slow and humbling, learned it hanging in the doubt: it was never 'bout the fiber, it was never 'bout the route — 'cause a thread tied to Your hand holds more than steel alone, and the weakest thing You're holding won't drop me on the stones [Pre-Hook] 'Cause I measured all its weakness, never measured what it's tied to, never looked up past the fraying to the hand I never knew — the thread was never the strong part… the strong part held the thread [Bridge] (choir, half-time, big gospel runs over the top) It held (it held) When it shouldn't (when it shouldn't) One thin line against the dark and it wouldn't come undone It held (it held), You held the end — the thread was just the thing between my falling and Your hand (it held… it held…) [Verse 3] (energy lifts, hope breaks through, vocal opening to full) Now I don't despise the thin things, don't despise the fragile stay, 'cause the strongest thing that saved me didn't look the part that day I came up off the fraying with my whole life still attached, and the thread that I'd been cursing was the grace I couldn't catch I stopped counting all the fibers, stopped predicting when I'd fall, 'cause the hand that held the other end was never thin at all — and the same thread that was holding me started stitching up the tear, sewed the broke of who I was with the thinnest kind of prayer [Final Hook] (full belt + choir + runs) I was hanging by a thread and I hated that it's thin — but it held me through the dark I was so sure would do me in Bracing for the snap and it never ever came, 'cause the thread held, the thread held Turns out the thinnest thing can hold the heaviest of weight when the one who's on the other end refuses to let it break — and the thread held, oh, the thread held [Outro] (choir fades under reverb, organ holds, vocal soft) I never saw the hand… just the thread… but the hand was always there… it held…
