[Intro – Cicadas + Slow Heartbeat Bass]
[Snake rattle softly in the distance]
Cottonmouths don’t chase people.
They strike…
when cornered.
[808 crashes in]
Same thing with Southern boys raised wrong.
⸻
[Verse 1]
🎶
Raised where the hunger sat deep in the house,
Mama stressed quiet, daddy drunk loud.
Learned real young how to read fake smiles,
How to survive humid, violent miles.
Streetlights flicker on puddled roads,
Every friend lost another piece of they soul.
Police lights bounce off gold fronts bright,
Another young boy disappear in the night.
Now my jaw locked tight like pressure pipes,
Trust thin as swamp-bridge wires.
Louisiana make your instincts sharp,
Turn wounded children into guarded hearts.
🎶
⸻
[Hook – Choir + Heavy Bass]
🎶
Cottonmouth…
Don’t get too close…
Pain make venom outta broken souls.
Cottonmouth…
Southern child…
Smile pretty while the danger wild.
🎶
⸻
[Verse 2]
🎶
Everybody strapped where I come from,
Not always guns—sometimes emotional ones.
Pride, ego, rage, distrust,
Ways we protect ourselves from rust.
Seen boys turn cold by twenty-one,
Already convinced they halfway done.
That’s what survival mode create—
People who bite before it’s too late.
And women down here know it too,
Can smell hurt in the things men do.
That’s why love get difficult to hold,
When trauma make affection cold.
🎶
⸻
[Bridge – Spoken + Organ]
The South teach survival early.
Sometimes too early.
🎶
Black water underneath my feet…
Still got poison inside me deep.
🎶
⸻
[Verse 3]
🎶
But every cottonmouth ain’t evil born,
Some just shaped by endless storms.
By empty kitchens and loaded nights,
By fathers disappearin’ from life.
So I pray someday I shed this skin,
Learn peace deeper than survival instinct.
Because I’m tired of livin’ defensive and numb,
Like danger the only thing I become.
🎶
⸻
[Final Hook – Full Brass + Choir]
🎶
Cottonmouth…
Still survive…
Even in the mud where hope gone die.
Cottonmouth…
Swamp-bred pain…
Tryna learn how to love again.
🎶
⸻
[Outro – Snake Rattle + Thunder]
Careful what survives the storm…
Sometimes it come back venomous.
