Raised on Absence

[Intro, soft female voice]
You said there was something wrong with me
I was only young
You said there was something wrong with me
Now I still feel it

[Verse 1, male rap]
They said there was something wrong with me before I knew my name,
Before I knew what hurt was, before I knew shame,
Before I knew a kid could get sat down and reshaped,
Till he couldn’t tell the difference between help and being erased,
Little white pills, dry mouth, dead appetite,
Taught me from young that my natural self was not right,
Made me dull, made me still, made me easy to control,
Like my spark was inconvenient so they cut it from my soul,
Never asked what I felt, never asked why I burned,
Just decided I was broken by the way my spirit turned,
Like being intense was sickness, like feeling deep was wrong,
So if I got rage in my chest, that’s where part of it was born

[Chorus, soft angelic female voice]
You said there was something wrong with me
I was only young
You took the light I had in me
Before I knew what I’d become
Now I still feel it in my bones
Still feel it in my blood
You said there was something wrong with me
But I was only young

[Verse 2, male rap]
My father was a ghost with a job and a reason,
Always working away through the years and the seasons,
I know he was trying, I know money had to come,
But a kid don’t hold a payslip, he just wants his dad home,
He missed my birthdays, missed the moments that mattered,
So I learned what absence was while the candles burnt faster,
Then there was mum with the bottle and the gambling holes,
Watching dad’s hard-earned money get swallowed whole,
So what was his absence for if the house still broke?
If the money disappeared and the whole home choked?
That shit builds aggression in the back of your mind,
When the people meant to make home just leave damage behind,
Every drunk night, every bad bet, every tension-filled room,
Every little bit of chaos made the darkness bloom

[Chorus, soft angelic female voice]
You said there was something wrong with me
I was only young
I waited there for love to reach me
But it never seemed to come
Now I still feel it in my bones
Still feel it in my blood
You said there was something wrong with me
But I was only young

[Verse 3, male rap]
Now I got this thing in me, always sitting in the rear,
Like a storm behind my eyes, like a blade always near,
And the next person that crosses me can wake it if I’m weak,
Like all that old pain still wants a body it can reach,
That’s the part I hate most, but I’d be lying if I hid it,
There’s a darkness in me, mate, and sometimes I can feel it,
Not because I love it, more because it got made,
By years of being cut up, shut down, drugged, and betrayed,
One side wants peace, one side wants to explode,
One side knows better, one side still carries that load,
Trying not to let pain become all I can be,
Trying not to let the damage become me

[Final Chorus, soft female voice]
You said there was something wrong with me
But I was only young

Fast hard-hitting Australian hip hop, clear Aussie male rap accent, raw personal storytelling, urgent flow, controlled a