[Intro – Snake Rattle + Church Bell]
[Snake sliding through wet grass]
Everybody think saints look innocent.
[808 crashes hard]
Down here…
our saints survived too much for that.
⸻
[Verse 1]
🎶
Saints wear snakeskin where I’m from,
Gold teeth flash under shotgun suns.
Swamp-born soul with prophetic swagger,
Whole aura smell like storms and cigars.
Mon Dieu, my boots got graveyard mud,
Still walk clean through nightclub floods.
I got gris-gris tucked inside the coat,
Protection from envy and haunted folks.
Black river wisdom in my bloodstream heavy,
That’s why my calm feel slightly deadly.
Louisiana taught me elegance under pressure,
Smile smooth while survivin’ weather.
Shorty from Lake Charles kissed my face slow,
Said:
“Cher, your spirit move cold.”
I told her:
“Baby, snakes shed skin…”
“That don’t mean they stop bein’ snakes.”
🎶
⸻
[Hook – Choir + Brass]
🎶
Saints wear snakeskin tonight…
Black leather shine beneath moonlight.
Saints wear snakeskin still…
Grace and danger coexist.
🎶
⸻
[Verse 2]
🎶
I’m from where old women pray with cigarettes lit,
And hustlers quote scripture accurate.
Where beauty and pain share mirrors,
And survival sharpen intuition.
Flow got swamp heat and velvet venom,
Every bar smell spiritually expensive.
I rap like thunder over levee walls,
Like Louisiana itself got vocals.
My dawg said:
“You changed after the storms.”
I said:
“Pressure reveal final forms.”
Now my soul move quieter lately,
Less ego…
more ancestry.
Still got alligator instincts near betrayal,
Still don’t trust skies too peaceful.
Because down South calm feel suspicious,
Like the universe holdin’ its breath.
🎶
⸻
[Bridge – Spoken + Organ]
Survival changed us.
But survival also dressed us.
🎶
Black scales shimmer in candlelight…
Every wounded soul still fight.
🎶
⸻
[Verse 3]
🎶
Truth is—
I stopped wishin’ to be innocent.
I just wanna be honest now.
Honest about the storms.
The ghosts.
The rage.
The loneliness.
The hunger.
Because maybe holiness ain’t purity—
maybe it’s endurance with compassion.
And maybe Louisiana understood that first.
🎶
⸻
[Final Hook – Full Orchestra + Choir]
🎶
Saints wear snakeskin through the rain…
Louisiana born from pain.
Saints wear snakeskin still rise…
Swamp-born souls survive the night.
🎶
⸻
[Outro – Snake Rattle + Thunder]
[Church choir fading into swamp ambience]
Down here…
grace got scales too.
