Side A, The Fall

Intro

Mm

Mm-hmm

Oh-oh

Verse 1

Mama's old cassettes were stacked beside the stove

I learned the words in Arabic before I learned to read them

One ear against the speaker for the strings I couldn't name

My sister hummed the chorus wrong

And we kept it that way

Pre-Chorus

Then a choir teacher stopped me in the hallway

Said your voice is strange

It bends where it shouldn't go

I practiced in the stairwell

Where the tiles threw it back

Learning how to love the bend

Learning how to love the crack

Chorus

Now I sing it like I mean it

Every note I used to hide

I sing it like I mean it

Take the strange and make it mine

Everything they told me quiet

I turned loud

I sing it like I mean it now

Post-Chorus

Oh-oh-oh

Like I mean it now

Oh-oh-oh

Verse 2

At twenty-three I found the tape in a shoebox in the hall

The label in her handwriting

Side A, my name, the fall

I pressed it in the deck and heard a room I never knew

Her voice was young and shaking

And it sounded just like mine

Pre-Chorus

She sang the part I fumbled

She paused where I still pause

For twenty years she kept it

In a box behind the coats

I called her from the kitchen

Said I heard you

Said I heard you

And we sat there in the quiet

Letting all the quiet do

Chorus

And I sing it like I mean it

Every note I used to hide

I sing it like I mean it

Take the strange and make it mine

Everything they told me quiet

I turned loud

I sing it like I mean it now

Bridge

All those years I thought her silence was a wall

It was a shelf

It was a shelf

Holding something for me

Holding something I could never reach alone

She was waiting

Waiting for me to ask

Instrumental Journey

Final Chorus

So I sing it how she taught me

Every bend and every crack

I sing it how she taught me

Nothing strange about it now

Every voice that came before me

In my mouth

I sing it like I mean it

Loud and proud

Outro

Mm

The label said my name

Mm-hmm

Side A, the fall

Oh-oh