The Gift Songtext
My mum used to listen to Janis Ian
While one brother listened to Rush
The other brother listened to dub from the Caribbean
Another brother listened to 'Hush'
Dad was Lead Belly, Dylan and Byrd
It was a gift from my family, everything that I heard
Without music I would have been a different man
Now put your hands in the air like it's a stick-up
Bang
My dad used to put on the blues
I could hear his head banging on the wall in the next room
And after he had passed
I realized it was music that he had passed
It's a river that runs inside you
And just like a river it will provide you
In church, they sing to the Lord above
'Cause you sing when you're in love
It's the music
Woo! For the love of sweet music
Ever since I was a cub with sheet music
It's such a deep movement
Like hearing 'Ante Up' in the club and we lose it
What's the first thing we give our kids? We sing to them
And that's 'cause of all the joy it that it brings to them
I haven't gone a day without it
A second of a song can make me nostalgic

Laid the foundation
I felt the vibration
The building blocks of who I'd become

It's the music
Passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music
Passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway we love
It's the music
Passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music
Passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway we love

We inherit the gift
Bestowed on the road that we tread as a kid
The sound of guitar in the house from my father
No doubt was the start of the lesson I lived
At home it was Eagles, Stones or the Beatles
Zeppelin and Hendrix, no one his equal
That's all I've known, and if we've all
Grown, I'm a patchwork sewn from my people
It felt like that was contagious
Big bro was LA rap and the Raiders
My neighbors, Tupac on their playlist
I was more Biggie, back in the days with
Every song painted my heart
Facets of a window, stained in glass
Now I see the world through the shade they cast
And it shaped what became of us

It laid the foundation
I felt the vibration
The building blocks of who I'd become

It's the music
Passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music
Passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway we love
It's the music
Passed from my father
A pile of vinyl covered in dust
Gift of music
Passed from my mother
Drifting down the hallway we love

I felt the sweetness deep in my bones
When I fell asleep on the couch in headphones
Could melt my weakness away on its own
Was a well so deep it felt like a home...