The songs
Press play on track one. Come back changed by track five — and hunting for the repeat button by track ten.
Lyrics go up as each song is released. Until then, here's who each one is about.
Track 01
a man forgiven
“He's been faithful all my life — two packs at a time.”
Same bell over the same door, same two packs on the counter, same prayer in the parking lot before the cellophane tears. He gave up everything else without a fight. This was the one thing he kept asking permission to keep — and Somebody was patient about it.
Lyrics with the release
Track 02
a daughter named
“The prettiest part of you is the part that don't get old.”
A red-haired girl with flour on her hands and a song in the kitchen, growing up faster than the second verse can hold her. She carries the name of a woman who loved her before she ever arrived. Some inheritances don’t come in envelopes.
Lyrics with the release
Track 03
a brother built
“Grow where God planted you.”
A farm-raised man took a desk job because that’s what you do, and it nearly took him instead. So he picked up a hammer and found out what his hands were for. He married the twin of his best friend’s bride — brothers on two counts now, and neither one has ever held a wall up alone.
Lyrics with the release
Track 04
a brother raised
“He came up breathin' — so I'm gonna keep livin'.”
It started with a stranger running the table — *rack ’em up, kid* — and turned into twenty years of brotherhood nobody signed for. One day he knelt down hard, went under the water, and came up with a breath that outlasted him. This song is for keeping it going.
Lyrics with the release
Track 05
a son marked
“The water marked you first — the ink just wrote it down.”
One last long road a father had to give, and a son who took it — past goats and barroom bands and mountains that didn’t leave a mark. Then a waterfall did. What happened there got written down twice: once in ink, and once somewhere the ink was only copying.
Lyrics with the release
Track 06
a team forged
“They came to me as boys, they walked away as men.”
A small-town team that learned the pass nobody had to make and the seat nobody minded taking. They won plenty — that’s not what the song is about. One of them went home early, and his spot stays open.
Lyrics with the release
Track 07
a woman answered
“Somebody knew I'd find heaven there.”
On one back deck, a flower opens every morning and is gone by dark — twenty-five years running, one bloom at a time, most of them photographed before she’s had her coffee. Somebody’s been leaving her a note a day. She finally answered it in the water.
Lyrics with the release
Track 08
two mothers carried
“Love don't leave when the leavin's done.”
Two mothers, two whole stories of pain and loss, and not one word of complaint between them in the carrying. One is still here to hear this song. The other one heard it first — and everything growing on this record is fruit off those two branches.
Lyrics with the release
Track 09
a mender mended
“It took the Master Mechanic to fix the fixin' man.”
Thirty-five years in the belly of other people’s airplanes for an outfit that never learned his name — and half the county’s trucks running for free on the side. Then a pastor caught him cussing on a church frame one afternoon, and the fight went out of him. That was the day the fixin’ man finally got worked on.
Lyrics with the release
Track 10
a shepherd stayed
“It's always been enough.”
He planted a church in a living room — twelve folks and a pickle jar for an offering plate — and never once called it small. Trace almost any song on this record far enough upstream and you’ll pass his door. He’d tell you he had nothing to do with any of it. That’s how you know.
Lyrics with the release