[Intro]
[Cheap acoustic guitar misses the first two motif notes, then tries again.]

[Male Vocal]
[Verse 1]
By Monday noon, the sign was down,
Red letters stacked beside the ground.
The loader bit the dressing wall;
White plaster covered names and all.
Across the street, the kid stood still,
Folded poster at his heel.

[Chorus]
The kid with the folded poster
Had no stage and had no name.
Six strings bought from a neighbor,
One red pick and borrowed flame.
A room may fall beneath the dozer;
What it started still can grow.

[Verse 2]
He taped the paper by his bed,
Half the date, half headline red.
His fingers blistered through the spring;
He learned one chord, then broke a string.
A drummer practiced on cracked pails;
A singer wrote and bit her nails.

[Chorus]
The kid with the folded poster
Had no stage and had no name.
Six strings bought from a neighbor,
One red pick and borrowed flame.
A room may fall beneath the dozer;
What it started still can grow.

[Instrumental Break]
[Red pick strikes strings; the two-note phrase becomes four.]

[Verse 3]
They played behind a laundry store,
Cheap rent, hot pipes, a locked-back door.
Eleven friends; two left too soon;
Nine stayed under the buzzing moon.
For three rough minutes, clear and low,
Their new song held the room in place.

[Bridge]
[Female Vocal — Mara]
Don't make a shrine of our old scars.
Find your street. Find who you are.
Keep the lesson, lose the pose.
A living song is one that grows.

[Final Chorus]
[Male & Female Duet]
The kid with the folded poster
Found a stage without a name.
Four bare walls above a boiler,
One red pick and his own flame.
The Sunset room fell to the dozer;
What it started learned to grow.

[Outro]
[Gang Vocals]
No monument. No velvet rope.
A rented room. A working hope.
Four young names beneath the date.
One more band rehearsing late.
