Yard of Kings

[Verse 1]
We pulled the last splinter from the heart of West Broad Street,
and the air tasted of copper and concrete.
Replaced the bowed porch swing, the doorframe’s deep scar,
for a promise that gleamed like a brand new car.
Every brick we laid straight, every joint we made true,
we were building a kingdom for somebody new.

[Pre-Chorus]
'Gotta plane down the history,' a man with a clipboard said.
His hands were too clean for the words in his head.

[Chorus]
So we praise the new frame, but we don't know its name.
Is it home if you can't find a single old stain?
We won the whole war for this yard of kings,
and don't feel a thing.

[Verse 2]
They planted new saplings where the Gullah women sold
their sweetgrass and wisdom for stories in gold.
The news vans came Tuesday, called it a rebirth,
this clean, quiet heaven we scraped from the earth.
Now these calloused hands don't know the shape of the keys,
just the phantom hum of the bulldozed trees.

[Pre-Chorus]
'It's the price of the progress,' a voice on the radio sings.
But we can't find the receipt for these beautiful things.

[Chorus]
So we praise the new frame, but we don't know its name.
Is it home if you can't find a single old stain?
We won the whole war for this yard of kings,
and don't feel a thing.

[Bridge]
Replaced every brother who left for the rent,
with a kinder, a quieter, heaven-sent… ghost.
We built this new body, plank by perfect plank.
Whose soul is it now, standing here on the bank?

[Outro]
Yeah, we're the kings of this yard.
We're the kings of this yard.