Intro
Scrapyard hums like a choir with no pews
Furnace glow the only gold I ever knew
Grandfather's scrip still rattling in a coffee tin
Company paid in tokens, called that living
Verse
Talk about company town, paid in tin not green
Mill whistle screamed at five, dressed him in machine
He forged the rail plates that the trains would ride
Never owned a ticket, never left that side
Scrip in his pocket, spent it at the company store
Same hand that built the tracks couldn't afford the door
Fifty cents a plate and a cough he called his wage
Black lung was the pension when he turned the page
Buried with his hammer 'cause the bank wouldn't pay
Choir didn't sing loud enough to carry him away
So I kept his ledger, kept the numbers he wrote
Every notch a Sunday that never got a coat
Now I melt his silence down at two AM
Furnace roaring louder than the debt owed to him
Pour it into molds shaped like his open palm
Every casting that I make is an iron psalm
Chorus
Iron psalms for the unpaid, hammer keeps the time
Melt the chain to make the tool, that's the only rhyme
Every plate we forged for free still holds the bridge
Iron psalms for the unpaid, that's the only wage
Verse
I work the yard on Fifth where the gates go to die
Rusted through with names nobody bothered why
Pull the iron off a fence that jailed a family in
Melt it till it's clean, forge it new again
Twelve hour shift, same sun grandpa used to burn
Difference is I'm paid, but the ache's the one I earn
Scrapyard dog named Ledger sleeps under the crane
Watches me pour molten like it's holy rain
Sparks land on my forearm, scar next to his scar
Same map, different decade, same iron, same star
Boss man calls it labor, I call it a psalm
Every tool I temper is a callus turned to calm
Sold my first batch of plows to a farmer down the road
Told him where the iron came from, told him what it owed
He just nodded slow, said his father knew the mill
Said the debt got paid in something ledgers never fill
Chorus
Iron psalms for the unpaid, hammer keeps the time
Melt the chain to make the tool, that's the only rhyme
Every plate we forged for free still holds the bridge
Iron psalms for the unpaid, that's the only wage
Bridge
Found a scrip coin melted at the bottom of the pour
Grandfather's number stamped where it never was before
Didn't scrap it, didn't sell it, set it in the frame
Of the gate I built the church, so it could hold his name
Fire don't erase you, fire just makes you true
Every plate that holds a weight is a hymn he's singing through
Outro
Furnace cooling now, the psalm is in the steel
Ledger's closed but every gate still knows the deal
Paid in fire, paid in scars, paid in what remains
Iron doesn't forget the hands, it just wears their names
