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WHO BELIEVED ME FIRST lyrics
Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.
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Intro
Take me back... to the desk by the window. Who believed me first?
Verse 1
Bus stop on the 79th, backpack with the broke zipper, teacher named Pierre kept me after, called me a thinker, whole class laughed, I ain't laugh, I just sank lower, he slid me a book like a key, said the door is yours. Carol City in the morning got a gray kind of gold, mama worked the Publix line, came home tired and cold, nobody at the table said the words "when you grow," he was the first one to say it like he already know.
Chorus
Who believed me first, before the rent, before the worst, before I learned to flinch, way before the hearse? Somebody saw the whole of me in a boy on a bus, take me back, take me back to before I lost the trust. Take me back. Who believed me first? Take me back. Who believed me first?
Verse 2
Then the belief got heavy like a name you can't drop, every B felt like betrayal, every slip felt like a flop, he'd ask "where's the homework," I would lie through the gap, 'cause letting him down hurt worse than any strap. Senior year he got sick, that Jackson Memorial bed, I ain't visit, couldn't watch the man who built me need a hand, buried him in May, I skipped the cap and the gown, told myself I'd make it loud, then I quietly made it down.
Chorus
Who believed me first, before the rent, before the worst, before I learned to flinch, way before the hearse? Somebody saw the whole of me in a boy on a bus, take me back, take me back to before I lost the trust. Take me back. Who believed me first? Louder now. Who believed me first?
Verse 3
Mirror in the gas station bathroom off four forty-one, grown man, tired eyes, asking who I had become, I regressed to the kid with the broke zipper bag, but the kid had a book and a man who had his back. Now it's just the reflection and a question I can't dodge: do you remember the first time somebody believed in you, hard? I do. I just buried it deeper than him. And the deeper that I bury it, the smaller I been.
Verse 4
Nah. Today I'm pulling the boy back up off the floor, dusting off the spine of that book by the door. The regression is a current and I'm done getting towed, I'd rather drown swimming than coast where it's slow. I picked the pen back up, wrote his name in the margin, turned the guilt to a engine, turned the grief to a garden. They said I peaked at eighteen, watch me argue with that, take the kid out the gas station, give the man back his hat. Pierre, I'm sorry I ducked you, I was scared of the love, but I'm standing in it now, I'm the proof of what you was.
Chorus
Who believed me first, before the rent, before the worst, before I learned to flinch, way before the hearse? Somebody saw the whole of me in a boy on a bus, take me back, take me back to before I lost the trust. Take me back. Who believed me first? One more time. Who believed me first?
Verse 5
Little cousin at the Opa-Locka bus stop, broke zipper too, I said "you a thinker," watched the words land new, slid him a book like a key, said the door is yours, felt an old man smiling somewhere through the floors. So if you reading this and nobody said it yet: somebody see you whole before you a silhouette. Be the first to believe in the next one in the line. That's regression done right, you go back to be kind.
Outro
Slid him a book like a key. Said the door is yours. Go back to be kind.
Inside the recording
Take me back... to the desk by the window.
Who believed me first, before the rent, before the worst, before I learned to flinch, way before the hearse?
Slid him a book like a key. Said the door is yours.
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.