Intro
Ledger's kept in callus, every entry's red and old
Grandfather's grandfather's name carved in the cold
They don't print it in no book, but the debt gets passed along
Survival's just arithmetic, endurance is the song
Verse 1
Started on the third shift when the factory ran all night
Twelve-hour stretches, sweat pooling under light
Quota written on the wall in numbers nobody can miss
Miss one and the line stops, and the line don't forgive a skip
Rent was due on Tuesday, baby coming Thursday week
So he doubled up the hours till his vision went weak
Machine took three fingers on a Friday afternoon
Doctor said come back in six weeks, he was back in four
Floor supervisor asked him how he planned to work the press
One hand tied behind him, he just nodded at his chest
Said I got two palms left and a reason that runs deep
Every number on that wall's a number that I keep
Chorus
This is the ledger of the longships, debt paid in blood and time
Every scar's a line item, every night a reason why
This is the ledger of the longships, don't forget the price
What they owe us, what we carry, what we leave behind
Verse 2
Twenty years that way, the fingers never grew back straight
Thumb like a question mark, but he never missed a gate
Got promoted to the floor, started training up the young
Showed them how to read the rhythm, how to move before it sung
Showed them how to keep their heads when the quota's climbing up
How to swallow down the panic, how to drink from an empty cup
Then the plant shut down on a Tuesday, just a memo on the door
Thirty years of perfect attendance, still they pushed him to the floor
No pension, no severance, no ceremony, no goodbye
Just a handshake from a man who couldn't look him in the eye
He walked out through the parking lot at fifty-three years old
Body made of profit, but the profit wasn't gold
Chorus
This is the ledger of the longships, debt paid in blood and time
Every scar's a line item, every night a reason why
This is the ledger of the longships, don't forget the price
What they owe us, what we carry, what we leave behind
Verse 3
Now he sits and teaches kids what no school's gonna say
How to count in sacrifice, how to measure what you pay
How to know the difference between broken and between bent
How to read the ledger written in the money that you spent
Got two grandkids coming up, they ask about his hand
Why it moves like rhythm when he tries to make a stand
He says this is the letter that the old men send ahead
This is how we tell them that we survived instead
The factory's a apartment complex, got a Starbucks on the ground
Where the furnace used to echo with the most beautiful sound
Progress look like erasing, but the debt remain the same
Someone's gotta carry it, someone's gotta say their name
Outro
Ledger's kept in callus, every entry's red and old
What we paid with, what we're owed, the story that gets told
This is the ledger of the longships, written in the bone
