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Words from the artist’s archive
Twelve Saints lyrics
Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.
Read the lyric sheet
Intro
Yeah. Count 'em. Twelve. Same twelve faces, every block I done lived on. Carol City to Lauderhill, same souls, brand new names.
Verse 1
Grandma run the Caregiver shift, porch light prayer, feed the whole street off a check that ain't really there. Lil man Innocent, ain't priced out the air, race his bike down 62nd 'fore he learn what's out there. Mr. Everyman catch the bus on 27th to the gate, Publix badge, lunch in foil, clock the same eight. Jester on the corner crack a joke through the ache, laugh loud so the block don't clock how the funny man break. Twelve of 'em out here, I done counted the set, same names in Opa-locka that they bury and forget.
Chorus
Twelve saints on a block that the map don't claim. Lord, every soul got a face but the city never gave it a name. Hero, Rebel, Caregiver, the Jester and the flame, twelve saints, twelve saints, lighting candles in the rain.
Verse 2
The Ruler hold the corner like a throne built on debt, pay the young boys soldier wage 'fore they finish a set. Rebel wouldn't bow, took the charge, took the threat, now he ghost on the Palmetto, ain't surfaced yet. Weight of a crown is a body and a court date, Mama on the 95 'fore the visit, can't be late. Magician turn a twenty to a hundred in the dark, vanish off the block, reappear behind the county park. The cost of every role is a thing you don't pick, the hood hand you a mask, hand a name, hand a script.
Chorus
Twelve saints on a block that the map don't claim. Lord, every soul got a face but the city never gave it a name. Hero, Rebel, Caregiver, the Jester and the flame, twelve saints, twelve saints, even the Ruler die the same.
Verse 3
Caught my own reflection in a cracked phone screen, Creator with a notebook full of everything unseen. Tried to play the Hero, keep the collar pressed clean, Sage told me, boy, you ain't the role, you the in-between. Wrote my mama's worry in a verse so she heal, wrote Overtown a hymn that the radio won't feel. Which face is the real one when they all gotta eat? Twelve of 'em in me on a one-way Liberty street.
Verse 4
Nah. I'm done letting the block do the casting for me, tear the label off the soul, let the whole man be. Had me as the Everyman, gray and unseen, Explorer caught the Turnpike north 'til the city was a dream. Came back with a different tongue and the same old hum, the Lover and the Rebel and the kid on the bike all one. I'm the Ruler that stepped down, gave the crown to the mic, Magician pulled a future out a hand that held a knife. Twelve archetypes can't box what a grown man become, you don't get to name me. I'll be all of 'em, son.
Chorus
Twelve saints on a block that the map don't claim. Lord, every soul got a face but the city never gave it a name. Hero, Rebel, Caregiver, the Jester and the flame, twelve saints, twelve saints, lighting candles in the rain.
Verse 5
So I tell the lil Innocent on the 62nd block, every saint on this street was a kid the world forgot. You gon' wear a hundred faces 'fore you find your own, wear 'em all with honor, then you wear 'em back home. The Caregiver, the Sage, they the ones that survive, 'cause they carried twelve faces and they kept the love alive.
Outro
Say they names. Hero. Sage. Rebel. Lover. Twelve saints on a block that the map don't claim.
Inside the recording
Yeah. Count 'em. Twelve. Same twelve faces, every block I done lived on.
Twelve saints on a block that the map don't claim. Lord, every soul got a face but the city never gave it a name.
Say they names. Hero. Sage. Rebel. Lover.
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.