Martin Records - Good Boys

Good boys
They love you when you're useful
They call it loyalty new
York on the line
This is a city of contrast where fortune lives next to collapse
Where status can cover the fear that a confident face drives the mask
Loyalty ain't something you hang from your neck just to put on a show
It speaks without making a sound when the whole f*cking world lets you go
New York, New York bye bye bye bye bye
Kids, kids become grown before life ever says that they're old enough yet
While capital moves at the top through the hands of the well-connected
Some trade their freedom for influence, titles a seat in the name
Some make it out of the cage, but still carry the bars in their brain
The past keeps on walking behind you like shadows winning city lights
Bury it deep as you want, memory knows where the evidence lies
The streets never needed a classroom to teach you that choices have prices
So if you call yourself brother, don't make brotherhood temporary kindness
I watch principles fall every time that the capital rose
Watch yesterday's man and conviction put everything up to be sold
I don't need vows anymore
Don't need ceremony, you cause of my brother
Betrayal is always have value
The bill just comes back even tougher
When all of the lights disappear
You finally see who is who
You can hide from the eyes of the world
But the truth keeps on finding you
You can pray
But the debt ain't forgiven
Sooner or later the bill will be given
Hide who you are underneath your disguise
What you put in the ground
Comes back into your life
The good boys
With bad reputations
Trusting in actions
Not declarations
Everybody got their truth
If you call yourself family
I watch people rise out of nothing
And build themselves monuments tall
Then become terrified
Somebody might make them come down
Where they started it all
I watch friendship divided by profit., connections, and weight
And everyone promising
I'm going to stay somehow disappearing when fortunes would change
Power gets into your bloodstream much faster than bottom shelf liquor
Yesterday, brother, forever
Today, your memory suddenly differs
A check can transform how you walk, how you talk, who you call, how you move
And the higher a man wants to climb, the more thunder is waiting above
I watched heroes constructed from slogans and perfectly polished replies
Then you took the crown off their heads with no cameras, applause or disguise
The next man is waiting outside already fitting the suit to his frame
While the one sitting comfortably thinks that forever is written beside his name
Everybody bargains with conscience
The only distinction is the price
One walks away from the offer
Another sells everything twice
That's why
I stopped trusting language
However impressive the lies, time is the ultimate detector
It separates people from quotes and from lies
Don't ask me who had it right
Time has a handwriting all of its own
It turns every word that we write into consequences carved into stone
When nobody wants something from you, no favor, no payment, no prize
The ones who remain are your people
The ones who value your name over pride
But the debt ain't forgiven
Sooner or later, the bill will be given
How do you want underneath your disguise
What you put in the ground comes back into your life
Some choose their conscience
Some choose the money
Some sell their friends when the percentage is lovely
This city remembers the faces and scars
Quiet in the streets
Here come the good boys
Good, good, good boys
With bad reputations
Trusting in actions, not declarations
Good, good, good boys
Everybody got their truths if you call yourself family
Tomorrow, prove it too