Concrete Keeps the Receipts 2 (Version 2)

Intro

Concrete still got a story to tell

Verse

Fifteen winters since the block used to be mine

Four corners and four faces, we stood in line

My name was listed first, but it wasn't by design

I took what they gave me when my own life went blind

Marcus kept the books on every favor I did

Wrote it down in pencil where the debt still lived

He knew I'd come back to pay him double time

Not just 'cause he loved me — 'cause that's how you climb

Pre-Chorus

Every step up, a ledger turned

The concrete kept the receipts while the years burned

Chorus

Concrete keeps the receipts, don't need no witness

I'm paying off favors one at a time in my conscience

Verse 2

My boy Lil Danny's gone now — left the city too

But he still lives on the page where Marcus kept it true

I sent him money from the tour bus when I was broke

Kept the promise made under streetlights, nobody spoke

He came home with a job and a house on the rise

Signed my name in iron across his front-yard skies

That's what loyalty is — not just a feeling or a song

Concrete proves you showed up when the streets went wrong

Pre-Chorus

Every step up, a ledger turned

The concrete kept the receipts while the years burned

Chorus

Concrete keeps the receipts, don't need no witness

I'm paying off favors one at a time in my conscience

Bridge

You can call it debt or you can call it love

Either way, I owe that to Marcus from above

No interest charged on what he gave me free

Just a balance due and an understanding of who we be

So let the concrete keep the story, I don't need no pen

Every favor paid back with the life I lent

Chorus

Concrete keeps the receipts, don't need no witness

I'm paying off favors one at a time in my conscience