Ledger of Scars (Version 2)

Intro

Tape unrolls slow, thumb presses the swell

Cutman counts stitches like currency to sell

Bell hasn't rung yet and already I can tell

Verse

Twelve years old, Pop wrapped my hands in old sheets

Said the ring don't care whose name is on the seats

First split brow I caught, I was nine rounds deep

Swallowed the copper taste and kept my feet

Learned to read a face by the way the eye swells

Purse was forty dollars, promoter kept the rest as well

Every stitch a signature, every scar a stamp

Sold my nose off twice for a shot under the lamp

Spit bucket rusted the color of my youth

Corner stool splinters carry all the proof

Nobody hands you legend, you gotta bruise for the crown

I stood back up more times than I ever went down

Pre-Chorus

So tell me what's the number, what's the price of a name

Is it stitches or the silence when they don't call again

Chorus

I keep a ledger of scars, not a ledger of cash

Every mark on this face is a debt that I paid in a flash

Column left is the pain, column right is the proof

Add it up and it spells out I never once loosed

Ledger of scars, and it's paid in full

Verse

Twenty years later my knuckles talk like stone

Trainer now, got a kid with a jab of his own

Told him the scale don't lie and the mirror don't cheat

Wrapped his hands the way my Pop wrapped up my wrists

Purse is bigger now but the cut still opens the same

Told him the scar ain't shame, it's a ledger with your name

Watched him drop in round three, watched him rise in round four

Said that's the interest, son, that's what the scars are for

Pre-Chorus

So tell me what's the number, what's the price of a name

Is it stitches or the silence when they don't call again

Chorus

I keep a ledger of scars, not a ledger of cash

Every mark on this face is a debt that I paid in a flash

Column left is the pain, column right is the proof

Add it up and it spells out I never once loosed

Ledger of scars, and it's paid in full

Bridge

Gloves hang on a nail like a flag half-mast

Still I bleed in my sleep every fight from the past

Traded corners for chairs, still I answer the bell

Every kid that I train pays a page I can't sell

Chorus

I keep a ledger of scars, not a ledger of cash

Every mark on this face is a debt that I paid in a flash

Column left is the pain, column right is the proof

Add it up and it spells out I never once loosed

Ledger of scars, and it's paid in full