The Man I Made

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About this song

When the Toady makes the Man

Lyrics

[Intro - Rhodes, Sparse, Low Bass]

[Verse 1]
He can hold a room in silence
Longer than a man should try
He can find the one word missing
And he never has to lie
I have watched a hostile table
Lean and soften, one by one
I just hand him what I've written
And I watch what he has done

[Pre-Chorus - Build]
I was nothing in that building
Just a desk without a name
Then I gave him what he needed
And I taught him how to aim

[Chorus - Full Band]
Stand him in the light and watch them
Every doubter, every friend
He can say a thing so plainly
That they'll follow to the end
I have never met his equal
I have never been afraid
Let them keep their better angels
I will take the man I made

[Verse 2]
He can cut a man in public
And the room will laugh along
And the man he cut will thank him
Just to prove he took it wrong
I have seen him take a hammer
To a friend of twenty years
And explain it in the car ride home
Till it all just disappeared

[Pre-Chorus - Build]
I have carried worse than that one
I have carried worse than ten
And I called the whole thing method
And I built him up again

[Chorus - Full Band]
Stand him in the light and watch them
Every doubter, every friend
He can say a thing so plainly
That they'll follow to the end
I have never met his equal
I have never been afraid
Let them keep their better angels
I will take the man I made

[Bridge - Quiet, Congas, Low Vocal]
Twenty years of other people
Twenty years I watched him swing
Then one evening he swung at me
And I felt the whole damn thing

And I'd like to say I left him
For the twenty years of men
But I sat there in that hallway
Doing math on it again

[Build - Double Bass Drums, Rising]
I did not discover cruelty
I had catalogued it all
I just never had to wear it
Till he turned it down the hall

[Final Chorus - Energy: High]
Stand me in the light and ask me
Ask me why I never ran
You were sitting in that same room
You were laughing at the man
You have never met his equal
You have never been afraid
I got paid for what I gave him
Now you tell me why you stayed

[Outro - Sparse, Rhodes, Slow Fade]
I'm the one who wrote him
You're the one who stayed
Don't go asking who he is
He's the man we made
[End]

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