Intro
Lamp oil burning low in a room where collectors don't come
Thirty names in my throat and I owe every one
Verse
Mine caved in on a Tuesday, dust turned the sun to a bruise
I was the one they dug out, still don't know why I chose to lose
Twelve men under the timber, I heard the beams start to sing
Crawled through the black on my elbows, tasted the coal like a ring
Foreman said keep it quiet, company paid for the hush
I took the check for a week then I threw it back in the rush
Started writing their surnames on the back of a grocery list
Turned it to verse by November, turned the verse to a fist
Nobody crowned me a bard, nobody asked for the job
But silence costs more than paper, paper's the only guard
I sing at the tavern for coin now, sing at the wake for free
Every stanza's a coffin nail, every rhyme is a key
They call me the skald of the hollow, say I owe them my breath
I say the debt runs the other way, they bought back my death
Traded their own for mine so I carry the names like a skin
Every scar on this paper is proof of the men who let me win
Chorus
I sing so the ash don't own the story
I sing so the dark don't get the glory
Every name that I carry costs me sleep and it's worth it
Still paying the skald's debt, one verse at a time
Verse
Twenty years since the collapse and my hands still shake on the pen
Young ones ask how I made it, I tell them I didn't, not then
Part of me stayed in that shaft where the lantern light couldn't reach
I just carry him with me, let him borrow my speech
Wife used to say put it down, the dead don't need any more ink
I told her the living forget faster than the well runs dry from a drink
Wrote a song for the widow, she cried but she asked me for one more
Said her husband was funnier than the verse let on before
So I fixed it, I always fix it, the record's never quite done
Every version's a payment, every edit's a debt to someone
Town wants a statue now, wants my name on a plaque by the gate
Told them put their names instead, I'm just the one still awake
Held the mic like a shovel, dug the same hole in reverse
Brought the buried back level, one syllable, one hearse
They say a skald sings for glory, I say glory's a currency spent
On the nights when the twelve men visit and ask what the silence meant
Chorus
