[Intro — low, raspy hum over sparse acoustic picking + faint 808 sub rumble]

Buried alot of good men over the years—over half of them gone to soon...

While the wicked one's are still rising high as the moon.

[Verse 1 — slow, intimate, voice cracking like dry timber, 808 hits sync'd tight to downbeat kicks]

Daddy always said the good Lord takes the good ones first,

I used to think that was just something people said to ease the worst.

But I've watched it long enough now—Lord, the pattern's getting clear—

The ones who gave the most of themselves don't seem to last fifty years.

Neighbor down the road spent forty years just doing right,

Quiet man, strong hands, never picked petty fights.

Cancer took him in the fall while the man who stole his land

Still sits on the county commission, still shaking every hand.

[Pre-Chorus — steel weeps, heartbeat kick + locked 808 pulse rising slow]

Tell me Lord how does the wicked wake up easy every day,

While the gentle and the honest get called early on their way.

[Chorus — full band erupts, raw-throated belt, gritty three-part harmony, massive 808 slides + synchronized bass hits slamming on every kick]

The good die fast and the evil rises high in the way of life these days,

While the righteous lay their burdens down the crooked flags unfurl.

Mama raised me on the Good Book and the promises inside,

But the evidence keeps piling up like something's wrong with the divide.

Men with hollow eyes and hollow chests keep climbing to the top,

While the ones with something real to give can't find a place to stop.

Lord I'm trying hard to trust you but the math don't add up right—

Good men dying in the shadow while the wicked own the light.

[Verse 2 — quicker drawl, desperate edge, rhythm driving hard, 808 glides sync'd to snare/kick pattern for trap-country bounce]

Watched a woman in this town give everything she had,

Fed the hungry, raised the broken, held the ones who'd gone bad.

Heart attack at fifty-eight—Lord, just like that she's gone—

While the man who ran the mill and cheated workers carried on.

Seen it on the television, seen it down the county road,

Seen it in the boardrooms where they split the heaviest load.

Good ones burn out early like a candle blown out at night,

Evil just keeps multiplying cause it don't have that kind of mind.

[Bridge — stripped raw: voice + piano + weeping steel, builds to primal roar, 808 sub hits locked and gliding for tension release]

Lord I ain't lost my faith—I want to say that plain and true—

But I'm standing in the question of what goodness is to you.

Is it a burning that consumes you cause the world can't hold the flame,

Is the cost of being righteous that the righteous take the blame.

I've seen enough good people leave before their time was through,

To know this world's a hard place for the ones who live by you.

But Lord if good men quit because the wicked seem to win—

Then the darkness doesn't need the devil, it just needs the light to dim.

[Final Chorus — massive, defiant, voice breaking then soaring, 808s thundering in perfect sync with kicks for max impact]

The good die fast—Lord that's the truth and I won't dress it pretty—

But the light they left behind 'em, Lord, still lights up every city.

The neighbor's in the ground but what he planted's still alive,

The woman's in her grave but what she gave helps others thrive.

Evil rises high but it was always built on borrowed time,

On the backs of good men's labor and the stolen and the dime.

I'm a good man in a crooked world and I refuse to dim—

Lord let me burn out bright and fast before I bend to him.

[Outro — fading steel cry, single piano chord lingers, whispered into the void, final 808 tail decaying slow]

Yeah... good die fast.

Evil walks the hall.

But the light the good ones left behind...

Lord, it outlasts all.