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james cook - pennies lyrics

sound of loose change being counted and dropped.a sample from a historical speech or field recording fades in, then cuts abruptly to the beat

(verse 1)
they say a penny saved is a penny earned,that’s a clever phrase
but what’s the interest on a back that’s been bent for 400 days?
we laid the cornerstone,mixed the mortar, raised the whole facade
and the payroll was a noose,a whip, the title “property of god.”
from scratch?nah, from scar tissue and stolen breaths
the ledger’s in the land,paid for in ancestral deaths
so every lincoln penny feel heavy in the palm
a tiny copper tombstone singing a silent psalm
it’s browner than the henny,stained with a rust+red truth
the mint can’t print the value of a stolen youth
“liberty”still visible, even through the fire’s kiss
a bitter abbreviation of everything we missed

(chorus)
pennies make a dollar,dollars make a stack
but who made the dollars when the pay was just a back?
a hundred billion pennies in a silent,giant mound
buried in the foundation of the hallowed ground
they built it from the bottom,with no one red cent
just sweat equity traded for a world of discontent

(verse 2)
now check the new design,the twenty spot, they changed the face
a symbolic down payment for a monumental case
harriet on the twenty,a conductor on the bill
a step,but still a distance from squaring up the till
’cause the true cost of the cotton,the steel, the intellectual trade
is a balance still outstanding,a promissory note unpaid
it’s in the tulsa penny,charred and melted in the riot’s flame
a museum piece of trauma,asking “who’s to blame?”
it’s in the”not for radio” truth that nasir had to spit
the simple things complex when the system’s built on it
we count our coins for laundry,they count profits from the pain
a billion+dollar empire from a relentless,pouring rain
(chorus)
pennies make a dollar,dollars make a stack
but who made the dollars when the pay was just a back?
a hundred billion pennies in a silent,giant mound
buried in the foundation of the hallowed ground
they built it from the bottom,with no one red cent
just sweat equity traded for a world of discontent

(bridge)
so what’s the valuation?how do you appraise the sun?
the generations of labor,mother, father, daughter, son
it’s more than redistribution,it’s a reckoning of the books
it’s in the guilty stare a racist monument gets when it looks
it’s the”everything” they promised, yet simple things denied
a nation’s debt of honor,perpetually deferred and lied

(outro)
beat simplifies to just the kick drum and the haunting sample.the final bars are spoken, not rapped
until every copper cent,weathered and brown, tells the full story…
until the sweat is recognized as the real national glory…
the account remains unsettled.the interest… compounds

- james cook lyrics

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