[Intro]
[low whisper]
I wasn’t born in the fire…
I was carried there.
[Verse 1]
I came up where the pines bend low
and the screen doors slam like a warning shot
Red dirt stain on a white dress hem
barefoot child with a storm I caught
Mama said, “Girl, don’t look too long
into pain with your eyes that wide”
But the dark kept callin’ my true name back
like it knew what I kept inside
[Pre-Chorus]
I learned young
how the pretty things break
How love leaves marks
and mercy don’t stay
So I took every wound
every lie, every scar
and wore ‘em like scripture
under my heart
[Chorus]
Before the black smoke
before the crown
before my voice could burn a whole church down
Before the lace turned midnight on my skin
I was a girl with a match and a broken hymn
Now every ghost I carried
every cross I bled through
lives in the fire when I sing the truth
You hear Raven Blackthorne now
but she was born long before
the black smoke
[Verse 2]
There was a night by a riverbank bend
moon cut thin like a switchblade line
I swore my soul to the wild unknown
and the wild unknown swore back to mine
Fiddle cried from the sycamore dark
like some old past life callin’ me in
And I saw every woman before my name
sayin’, “Don’t you fold. Begin.”
[Pre-Chorus 2]
I wasn’t made
for a quiet room
I was shaped by ash
and a coming doom
Every slammed door
every fever dream
put iron in the blood
and smoke in the seam
[Chorus]
Before the black smoke
before the crown
before my voice could burn a whole church down
Before the lace turned midnight on my skin
I was a girl with a match and a broken hymn
Now every ghost I carried
every cross I bled through
lives in the fire when I sing the truth
You hear Raven Blackthorne now
but she was born long before
the black smoke
[Post-Chorus]
Black water in the mirror
coal dust in my lungs
I was becoming thunder
before I knew the tongue
[Bridge]
[growl to belt]
I kissed the fear and I bit it back
I took the grief and I made it black
I took the black and I made it shine
I took what tried to kill me
and taught it how to kneel in line
And when the world tried to name me weak
I dragged my bones through hell’s front door
Came out crowned in a fever dream
and I have never been hers anymore
[Final Chorus]
Before the black smoke
before the flame
before the whole damn night knew my name
Before the rafters ever learned my sound
I was becoming what could not be drowned
Now every mile behind me
every death, every truth
becomes a weapon when I cut it loose
You hear Raven Blackthorne now
like a curse, like a call, like folklore
But I was born long before
the black smoke
[Outro]
[whisper]
If you hear a fiddle cryin’…
that ain’t sorrow.
That’s where I started.
