We learned to walk upright and then we learned to draw a line

We learned to call it property and call the property divine

We learned to build a surplus and to guard it with a spear

Ten thousand years of ownership - and here we still are here

We mapped the constellations and we mapped each other's land

We wrote it into scripture so the writing looked like God's own hand

We handed down the ledger and we called the ledger just

And every revolution left the ledger in the dust

And the ledger remains!

In the blood and the grain!

Every settlement built

On the geometry of guilt

We surveyed the horizon

Called the plunder civilization

And the ledger remains

Now the satellites are watching every acre, every deed

And the algorithm prices what a human being needs

The landlord is a data set, the eviction is a click

Ten thousand years of ownership and we still haven't cracked it

They'll tell you it's just nature, that it's hardwired in the bone

That the ape who grabbed the ripest fruit deserved to call it home

But nature didn't draft the deed, didn't notarize the claim

Didn't found the LLC or register the name

And the ledger remains!

In the blood and the grain!

Every city hall built

On the geometry of guilt

We surveyed the horizon

Called the plunder civilization

And the ledger remains

Who drew the first boundary?

Who swung the first deed?

Who decided that arrival

Was the same thing as need?

We inherited the answers

To the questions no one asked

And called the whole arrangement

A meritocratic past!

The commons were enclosed and then the closing was forgotten

And the memory of the meadow slowly quietly went rotten

But the body still remembers what the document denied

There's a knowledge in the landless that no title can provide

And the ledger remains!

In the blood and the grain!

Every border patrol

On the geometry of soul

We surveyed the horizon

Called the plunder civilization

And the ledger remains!

The ledger remains!

The ledger - remains!

Draw the line

Sign the deed

Call it yours

Call it need

Draw the line

Sign the deed

The commons remembers what the deed cannot concede