Performer: The Roots

Performer: The Roots
Composer: T. Trotter
Genre: Hip Hop, Jazz
Style: Rap, Soul, Conscious
Album: Undun
Release: December 6, 2011
Label: Def Jam Recordings
Country: US

[Verse 1: Black Thought]
I drew a 2 of hearts from a deck of cards
 stock trick from my empty repertoire
 Another hopeless story never read at all
I’m better off looking for the end
 Where the credits are
It’s a pain living life against the grain
 I’m looking back and y’all look the same
 Troy, Mark, and little what’s his name
Memory is rerunning it all
 It’s the flight of my fall and it’s right on the wall

 [Hook]
 I remember
 Can you remember?
 How it was
 I do
 Remember, do you? (2xs)

 [Verse 2: Black Thought]
I used to ride the train to the same two stops
 And look at the graffiti on the rooftops
 Like the same song playing on the jukebox
 Joint called “Faded Polaroids In Shoebox”
 Regardless to what the cadence is
It can’t be forgotten like old acquaintances
 I realize how depressing of a place it is
 And when I notice my reflection whose face it is

 [Hook]

 [Musical break]

 [Hook]

 It’s only human to express the way you really feel
 But that same humanity is my Achilles’ heel
leopard can’t change his spots and never will
 So I’m forever ill
 Now I can never chill
 What’s keeping me from breaking out like Benadryl
 When my baptism of fire resulted in a kill
 Sometimes it’s as cut and dry as a business deal
 You gotta cause the blood of a close friend to spill
 But you remember still

 Tip the Scales

 I’m a side of suicide
 Heads or tails