Quiet Hands, Empty Towns

Lyrics

[Intro — soft radio static] “Free market… record profits… economic growth…” Yeah… Tell that to the people left behind. [Verse 1] Railroad tracks through a dying town Smoke stacks cold and the lights shut down Daddy worked nights till his back gave way Then the company moved the jobs away Paper said the market won But nobody asked what it cost someone Main Street boarded, church half full Kids grow up feeling disposable And somewhere high above the street Men toast wine while the workers bleed Talking numbers, stock projections Never seeing the human wreckage Ida sat with a stack of files Reading through corruption mile by mile Not conspiracy — contracts signed Quiet theft legalized by design [Pre-Chorus] Cause the powerful don’t always shout Sometimes they just price you out Move the money, close the door Till your whole town can’t breathe no more [Chorus] And the normal people pay for it Single moms and factory shifts Farmers drowning under debt Children learning to expect less While the headlines celebrate Another billionaire’s escape The system says that this is growth But it feels like losing home And every loophole, every shell Builds another private hell Where profit rises clean and tall While ordinary people fall [Verse 2] Oil kings and banking chains Tax havens washing profit stains Ireland, Bermuda, Cayman sands Money vanishing from working hands Teachers buying their own supplies Veterans lost beneath the night Roads collapse while numbers soar And nobody trusts the system anymore The algorithm feeds the rage Clicks and fear become the wage Everybody fighting online wars While wealth slips quietly offshore And maybe Babylon ain’t one throne Maybe it’s a mindset fully grown Where human souls become a line Buried underneath the bottom line [Bridge — stripped down] But somewhere still a truth survives In tired hearts and stubborn lives A nurse who stays past closing time A father working double nights A woman writing what she knows Even when nobody wants exposed Cause truth don’t need a golden crown It only needs somebody now [Final Chorus] So sing for the broken towns tonight For the families crushed by corporate might For the kids who watched their futures fade Inside decisions strangers made And maybe one day we’ll rebuild Something honest, something real Not another kingdom built on greed But a world where people still can breathe [Outro — fading piano] They called it efficiency… They called it progress… But the people living through it Had other names for it…