Red Clay Residue

[Intro]
[Verse]
Red clay stains on the denim fabric
Ghosts in the attic of a cabin cinematic
Sharecropper’s debt in the breath of the breeze
History hidden in the canopy of trees
They paved over the okra and the yams
Now we’re trapped inside the digital jams
But the soil still hums a spiritual tune
Under the light of a Piedmont moon
[Chorus]
They erased the name from the deed
But the soil remembers the seed
Blood on the plow, sweat on the brow
We reclaim the then in the now
Yeah, the land never lies
Under these Southern skies
[Post-Chorus]
Keep the roots deep
While the city folks sleep
Keep the roots deep
[Verse]
Grandpa’s palms like a topographical map
Tracing the lines of the cultural trap
He knew the rotation of the soy and the corn
Long before the new subdivisions were born
Calloused fingers counting out the rows
That’s where the unspoken legacy grows
Now it’s all concrete and eminent domain
Washing the heritage down in the rain
[Chorus]
They erased the name from the deed
But the soil remembers the seed
Blood on the plow, sweat on the brow
We reclaim the then in the now
Yeah, the land never lies
Under these Southern skies
[Bridge]
Property lines drawn in invisible ink
Bringing the culture right to the brink
From the porch to the court house floor
They don't want us owning no more
But the silt and the salt remain
Flowing through every black vein
[Verse]
Cultural amnesia is a heavy price
Trading the garden for a bag of white rice
We used to be the stewards of the pine
Marking the border and the property line
Now the kudzu swallows up the porch
While we’re still carrying the ancestral torch
Link the dispossession to the modern stress
Redistribution is the only way to progress
[Chorus]
They erased the name from the deed
But the soil remembers the seed
Blood on the plow, sweat on the brow
We reclaim the then in the now
Yeah, the land never lies
Under these Southern skies
[Post-Chorus]
Keep the roots deep
While the city folks sleep
Keep the roots deep
[Breakdown]
Dusty grooves on the vinyl spin
Where do the stories begin?
In the dirt, in the mud
In the spirit, in the blood
[Outro]