Tack & Rivet

[Verse 1]
(Sound of a voicemail tone)
Yo, it's Marcus. Pick up. Don't send this to voice...
aight, fine. The top right drawer of your uncle's Craftsman lockbox.
Not the sockets, not the deep wells, the one with the loose nuts and the dust flock.
That ain't a mess, it's a star chart, the coast of a man I'm still trying to clock.
You're talkin' tonnage and scrap price, I'm becalmed in the shadow of the block.
Each zinc-plated washer a dead-reckoned position,
a gasket dried hard is a shift in the wind's disposition.
This whole damn house is a hull taking water, I'm bailing with my bare hands, that's the mission.
So when you talk about pawn shops, you're talkin' sedition.

[Chorus]
This ain't just steel, it's the whole damn chart.
This the ballast in the keel, this the beat of the heart.
So don't you talk about scrap, don't you pull it apart.
That's the tack and the rivet, that's the finish and start.

[Verse 2]
Remember the F-150, the summer of '03, the oil pan?
The driveway smelled like July heat and metal, he put a wrench in my hand.
Said, "Hold the light steady, son, you're blockin' the port side."
Felt the weight of that steel, first time I had a place to hide.
And now you wanna weigh it, trade it for paper that folds?
That drawer holds the course, the story that nobody told.
You're jettisoning cargo in a squall, you're sailing blind and bold.
It's the only compass I got left to keep me from the cold.

[Chorus]
This ain't just steel, it's the whole damn chart.
This the ballast in the keel, this the beat of the heart.
So don't you talk about scrap, don't you pull it apart.
That's the tack and the rivet, that's the finish and start.

[Bridge]
(The beat cuts out, leaving only the 808 drone and a clean, melodic harp solo that runs for 4 bars)
Every fleck of rust...
is a shift in the tide...

[Outro]
Just... don't touch it. I'm coming by Tuesday.
(Click of the phone hanging up)