[Verse 1] Start at the corner and then walk it back with me. Boy on the pavement, that's the ending, not the story. Back through the hand, back through the hand that made the sale, back through the counter and the permit and the vice. back through a truck and a manifest and a price, back to a room with a table and a view, where they settled this, and nobody in there knew you. And the chain don't break, the chain just grows, every link a man with a mortgage and a reason that he holds, every link is licensed, every link is sold, and the boy never signed a paper, never voted, never rose, never had a lawyer with an office in the clouds, he just stood in the street where the chain came down. That's it. He stood where the chain came down. [Pre-chorus] Nobody pulled it in this song but everybody will pass it along. [Chorus] They'll call it a tragedy, the paperwork was clean, they'll call it a statistic, it landed where they aimed, they'll call it an epidemic, like it fell out of the sky, like it wasn't built and boxed and sold and signed. Somebody's tied and bound. Somebody's collecting. and now it's on the shoulder of this town. [Verse 2] Sixteen, and they'll call him an animal by dawn, a statistic by the evening, a debate and then he's gone, and they'll tell you it's the music, and they'll tell you it's the home, tell you it's a father that the boy had never known. They won't say the district and they won't say the zone, won't say who drew the line and left a whole side on its own. They'll blame the flood and never once discuss the drought, they'll name the hand and leave the arm entirely out, and his mother works a till on a Sunday afternoon, scanning things that cost more than they offered her for whom, got a letter with a logo and a line about her loss, keeps it in the drawer with the warranty for the fridge. Same drawer. Same weight. Same worth. [Pre-chorus] Nobody pulled it in this song but everybody will pass it along. [Chorus] So call it a tragedy, the paperwork was clean, call it a statistic, it landed where they aimed, call it an epidemic, call it anything at all, but somebody drew the line and somebody drew it twice. Somebody built this. Somebody's tied and bound. And his mother's got the bill. And she's reading it out loud. [Outro] He had a name. It's a number on a file. Walk it back. Keep walking. Tell me where it stops.