L'Ancre

Lyrics

[Intro]
A quiet room.
Nineteen seventy-four.
A question is waiting.
But first... the spin.

[Verse 1]
The wheel clicks to a stop.
The number is sixty-five. Just a number.
From a game.
Now, a question for you.
What percentage of the nations in the UN... are African?
Don't think too hard. Just... adjust.
From the number you saw.
The sixty-five.

[Chorus]
And the mind throws out a line.
The first sound it hears becomes the weight.
L'Ancre. The anchor.
It doesn't matter that the chain is made of air.
It holds you all the same.
It holds you there.

[Verse 2]
Amos and Daniel, they just watched.
They saw it at the negotiation table.
The first offer, high or low, absurd.
They saw it in the courtroom,
when the prosecutor names a number of years.
And the judge’s gavel feels the pull.
The first word is the deepest hole.

[Chorus]
And the mind throws out a line.
The first sound it hears becomes the weight.
L'Ancre. The anchor.
It doesn't matter that the chain is made of air.
It holds you all the same.
It holds you there.

[Bridge]
And I wonder...
What was my first number?
The price of that first apartment on Rue Froide?
The age he told me he was, that night?
The first salary I thought was a fortune?
What anchors are buried in my seabed,
rusting but still holding,
tethering me to a coastline I can't even remember seeing?

[Outro]
It clicks.
Ten.
Now... guess again.
Adjust.