Skald's Interest Rate (version 2)

Intro

Ledger book and a ballpoint pen

Kept the count when the count got thin

Said the interest compounds in the blood

Verse 1

My pops kept numbers in his head like a vault

Every dollar borrowed, every dime the cost

Wrote it down on napkins, envelopes, scraps

Said a man who forgets what he owes, he's trapped

Fifty-two weeks working, fifty-two weeks owed

Interest on the grocery, interest on the road

Nephew needed school clothes, borrowed from the crew

Paid it back in installments plus what was due

The lender never written but the debt was real

Handshake in the stairwell, that's the only deal

He'd tell me: money's memory, memory's the chain

Every borrowed moment got a price, a name

I watched him keep those ledgers in his mind so clean

Numbered all the favors, never missed a scene

Said the poorest man's the one who can't recall

What he promised to the people, what he owes them all

Chorus

Interest compounds in the blood

Every debt a seed, every seed a flood

You can't outrun what you owe

The ledger keeps its own slow grow

Verse 2

Now I'm in the game and the game's the same

Borrowed time to build it, borrowed heat for flame

Every hand I shook, every back I had

Tallied up inside me like a thousand stats

Woman at the corner store, she fronted me some bread

When the first check landed, interest in my head

Paid her double what she asked, she said that ain't the way

Said you settle what you owe and then you're on your way

But the debt don't end like that, it compounds in the soul

Every kindness that I take becomes a piece of coal

I carry in my chest, a weight that don't get light

The interest on survival is you never sleep at night

My pops knew this formula, lived it to the end

Said the only way to break it is to never need to lend

Chorus

Interest compounds in the blood

Every debt a seed, every seed a flood

You can't outrun what you owe

The ledger keeps its own slow grow

Verse 3

So I built the business with no borrowed hand

Earned the right to stand here on this ground I stand

Every dollar clean, no shadow underneath

No collector knocking, no regret in teeth

The interest on that freedom is you never forget

Where you come from, what you owe, the weight of every debt

I keep my pops' old napkins in a box at home

Proof that numbers follow you, you never walk alone

The ledger's always running, always keeping score

The interest on the living is you settle all before

You can call yourself a man or claim you made it true

You pay what's owed in full and you don't owe nothing new

Outro

Ledger book and a ballpoint pen

Said the count don't end, the count don't end

Interest compounds in the blood