[Intro]
[Instrumental: one bent guitar note hangs above a slow 12/8 drum pattern.]

The house was white against the hill,
The field below was dark and still.
A fiddle played beyond the lawn;
We rose to work before the dawn.

[Verse 1]
[Baritone]

The cotton opened, soft and white,
The sack grew hard across the night.
A driver counted row and hand,
A ledger priced the child and land.
From up the hill, a polished phrase
Declared that freedom crowned the age.
The word came floating, clean and grand,
Then met the blood upon my hand.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Baritone]

Do not praise marble, dome or pen
Before you count the purchased men.
Do not call liberty complete
While shackled feet enrich the street.

[Chorus]
[Both]

There is cotton under the anthem,
Blood beneath the band,
Gold in the marble mansion,
A whip across the land.
[Female mezzo]
Name every hand the anthem abandoned—
There is cotton under the anthem.

[Verse 2]
[Female mezzo]

I stitched a coat for someone’s son;
My own was sold before it was done.
I learned the road by star and tree,
Yet every mile had eyes for me.
A preacher spoke of patient grace;
A trader studied teeth and face.
I kept one lullaby intact,
A tiny country they could not tax.

[Pre-Chorus]

[Female mezzo]
The bell could summon, chain or sell;
It could not own the tale I tell.
My child was entered as a price;
I entered him in memory twice.

[Chorus]

[Both]
There is cotton under the anthem,
Blood beneath the band,
Gold in the marble mansion,
A whip across the land.
[Female mezzo]
Name every child the anthem abandoned—
There is cotton under the anthem.

[Break]
[Unison]

No marble rose alone.
No fortune fed itself.
No cotton crossed the ocean
Without a stolen life and health.

[Bridge]
[Baritone: modern witness]

The chain changed shape, the ledger stayed;
The debt was dressed, the wage delayed.
A prison farm, a company town—
Old labor wearing a newer gown.
The anthem cannot heal its line
Until the buried names can sign.

[Solo]
[Instrumental: guitar bends the three-note motif through a restrained blues-metal solo.]

[Final Chorus]
[Ensemble]

There is cotton under the anthem,
Blood beneath the band,
Gold in the marble mansion,
A whip across the land.
Name every hand the anthem abandoned;
Return the truth the anthem demanded.

[Coda]
[Ensemble]

No freedom song can understand us
Until it hears the cotton beneath it.

[Outro]
[Unaccompanied voices]

Soft was the cotton.
Hard was the hand.
Sweet was the anthem.
Bitter the land.