January Saturday

[Verse 1]
Femi, your Fanta was warm on the radiator grille, January Saturday, nineteen eighty-one.
We were tracing the cracks in the Aylesbury concrete ceiling, still
Arguing over which Lover's Rock tune was the one.
The tape hiss was louder than the actual bass line, you were rewinding it with a pen.
Mum was cooking downstairs, smell of egusi soup rising then.
You were stressed about the party on New Cross Road, a proper big ting.
Said, "Yvonne's gonna be there, so don't act a fool, don't say a thing."

[Chorus]
I never said it then, but your chesty cough was a blessing.
Second-guessing God's plan, that's a whole different lesson.
We were just two weeds growing sideways, dodging the press-gang.
Yeah, I never said it then. Glad you never went, fam.

[Verse 2]
The next day the whole block went quiet, a silence you could taste.
The Sunday papers left tied up, every headline laid to waste.
We were just two dandelions in a city full of brick.
Never thought the wind could be so deliberate on which seeds to pick.
Your Mum lit a candle on the Formica worktop by the sink.
Left a space in the stories 'round every single brink.
And forty-three-nine just became a number you don't say out loud.
A ghost in the post code, a permanent grey cloud.

[Chorus]
I never said it then, but your chesty cough was a blessing.
Second-guessing God's plan, that's a whole different lesson.
We were just two weeds growing sideways, dodging the press-gang.
Yeah, I never said it then. Glad you never went, fam.

[Bridge]
(Beat switches to a slower, more distorted 808 pattern with a haunting, pitched-down synth pad)
And sometimes on the night bus, rolling past that corner now,
I count the ghosts up on the pavement, and I wonder, like, how?
How close a body comes to being just a name on a list.
A future folded up and disappeared into the mist.

[Outro]
(Beat cuts out completely)
Anyway. Don't get it twisted, blood. Just… glad you're here.