The Real One

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About this song

From Tales from the Decryption. A man films a plant dumping into Miller's Creek at 2 a.m. In a world of perfect fakes, nobody can tell his video from a forgery, and in the end, neither can he.

Lyrics

[Intro]
[Acoustic guitar, steady kick drum]

[Verse 1]
These days you can watch anything: a senator confessing,
A dead man singing gospel, or a fire that never burned.
We used to gasp and share it; now we shrug and keep on scrolling,
'Cause seeing isn't believing—that's the first thing that we learned.

[Verse 2]
Two a.m. down at Miller's Creek, I was fishing by the culvert
When the pipe behind the plant began to cough up something black.
I held my phone up steady, got the tanker and the logo,
Got the dead fish rolling over, got the driver looking back.

[Verse 3]
I had it up by sunrise; by noon, a million saw it.
By supper, every comment said, "That's fake. That's AI."
The company said, "Fabricated." Three experts on the news
Said they couldn't prove it either way, and couldn't tell you why.

[Chorus]
But this is the real one—
I was standing in the creek,
I can still smell the diesel,
I still can't hardly speak.
But a true thing and a fake thing
Look exactly the same,
And the truth don't win a thing
When it can't prove its name.

[Verse 4]
Even my wife looked at me sideways over coffee,
Said, "Honey, are you sure? You know those things can fool you too."
My brother says I'm being used, my boy says, "Dad, just drop it,"
And the creek still runs that color, and I can't prove that it's true.

[Chorus]
But this is the real one—
I was standing in the creek,
I can still smell the diesel,
I still can't hardly speak.
But a true thing and a fake thing
Look exactly the same,
And the truth don't win a thing
When it can't prove its name.

[Bridge]
Used to be a photograph could stand up in a courtroom,
Used to be a tape could bring a crooked man to heel,
But when anybody can print money, nobody takes a dollar,
And when everything's a forgery, there's nothing left that's real.

[Verse 5 - Stripped down]
So I keep it on my phone like a stone in my pocket,
The one true thing I own, and I can't spend it anywhere.
And some nights late I watch it, and I swear I'm getting less sure—
Was the water really black? Was I really standing there?

[Final Chorus - Quiet]
This is the real one...
I was standing in the creek...
I can still smell the diesel...
Or I could, last week.
'Cause a true thing and a fake thing
Look exactly the same,
And I've watched it so many times now,
I can't swear to how it came.

[Outro - Spoken]
I was there.
...I think I was there.

[End]

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