The Cooper

Lyrics

There's a silence now.
A hum from the factory down the road.
They make the new containers.
Seamless. Cold.
They do not need to be rung.

But before that hum, there was a beat.
5:15 in the morning, 1873.
The air is wet oak and the ghost of beer.
The floor is a bed of curled shavings.
The drawknife waits, patient for the arm.
The croze waits, to cut the groove for the head.
The adze is a heavy thought in the hand.
This is the work before the world is awake.

And the stave sings its name when the driver falls true.
Oak on the iron, the iron on you.
The belly swells round, a world held in wood.
A ringing tone says the work is good.
The hammer sings the hoop tight, a promise kept.

For the wine, for the whiskey, for the herring in brine.
For the nails and the flour, down the merchant line.
The hands that held the hoop steady, they have no name in the book.
The journeyman from a country nobody knew.
You shaped the staves, bent them with steam and with fire.
You made the vessel that held every man's desire.
A flat tone meant failure. A flat tone was shame.
You struck it just once, and it rang out your name.

And the stave sings its name when the driver falls true.
Oak on the iron, the iron on you.
The belly swells round, a world held in wood.
A ringing tone says the work is good.
The hammer sings the hoop tight, a promise kept.

Then the world learned a new shape.
A cheaper, lighter thing.
No fire, no steam, no shavings on the floor.
No ringing tone for proof.
The orders just stopped.
The mallets were hung on the wall.
The rhythm of the morning just… went still.

Just the dust.
Just the faintest residue of resin in the air.
A ghost of sour mash.
The drawknife is rust.
The hoop is a flat line of iron on the floor.
The promise is broken.