About the song
Everything you walked in with, handed back across a counter in a paper bag. Sub-heavy dark trap, church bells, and a cold hard stop.
About these notes
AI-assisted song notes, based on the sources shown here. Not yet human-reviewed.
Words from the artist’s archive
PERSONAL EFFECTS 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
Received in full. Received in full.
Verse 1
The window has a slot cut low beneath the glass. A man has to stoop to pass a paper through. I slide the form in blank side up, the way the notice says, and a bag comes down the chute. The staple taps the steel. My name is on the tag, one letter wrong. Nobody has spent the ink it takes to fix it. The clerk turns the page. He taps the bottom line. Personal effects, it says, in type above my name. He doesn't look up. He has done this before. Received in full.
Verse 2
Wallet first. The leather keeps the bend of my back pocket. A coffee receipt is folded in the billfold, faded blue, a Tuesday in two thousand four, one large, one cruller, paid in cash. Then the ticket stub for the Friday after that. Row G, seat twelve, the corner still not torn, because the man who bought it never walked through the door. A key that opens a house another family bought. A phone gone dark. I press it once from habit. My thumb still knows the corner where the button was. Received in full.
Verse 3
Three coins roll out and stop against the form. Then a photograph, face down, and I turn it over slow. A kid looks back at me from a birthday I can smell. I don't count out loud. I signed a page like this one in the spring of two thousand four. Different window. Same chain on the pen. I signed that one faster. I didn't read it twice. And a man I will not name got to drive home that night. Received in full.
Verse 4
There is a smaller bag inside the first one. Same brown paper. Smaller staple. My name again, still wrong. A belt rolled tight. Two laces tied together in a knot I didn't tie. I thread the belt through one loop, then the next, and the buckle finds a hole that isn't the hole it used to find. I sit down in the plastic chair to lace them. Cross, pull, bow. The other shoe takes longer. Twenty-two years and my hands still want it fast. I put both feet flat under the chair. Then I stand.
Outro
I take the pen back from the little tray. My hand fits under the last printed line. I read it first this time. Then I sign. Received in full.
Inside the recording
Received in full. Received in full.
Three coins roll out and stop against the form. Then a photograph, face down, and I turn it over slow.
I take the pen back from the little tray. My hand fits under the last printed line.
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.