Credit Due
Credit Due
Ten years ago I was fifteen, standing in a school stairwell with a borrowed melody and a phone camera, and I posted the song that changed my life — without her name on it. She hummed it in homeroom first. She laughed at me when I got it wrong. And three weeks later the whole internet knew the tune as mine. I built everything on that video. Tonight, with one guitar and no band to hide behind, I'm saying her name, out loud, in front of everyone. This one's the receipt I should have signed a decade ago: Credit Due.
Lyrics
[Intro]
Mm, just me and the wood and the wire
Same as the stairwell, minus the choir
[Verse 1]
You hummed it in homeroom, I hummed it back wrong
You laughed and said, "that's not how it goes"
Three weeks later I'm famous for singing it strong
And the caption just said "original song"
I typed it myself, I remember the keys
Your name fit the line, I just left it at ease
[Pre-Chorus]
Ten years of strangers singing you in my throat
Ten years of me forgetting to quote
[Chorus]
Credit due, credit due
This was never mine, this was always you
Credit due, I sang it true
But the song was yours, so credit due
[Verse 2]
You watched from the cheap seats, I heard later on
The whole arena carried your bridge
You stood with the crowd and you sang along
To a song you wrote, that they swore was his
I built a whole house on a borrowed first floor
And called the address mine at the door
[Pre-Chorus]
Ten years of strangers singing you in my throat
Ten years of me forgetting to quote
[Chorus]
Credit due, credit due
This was never mine, this was always you
Credit due, I sang it true
But the song was yours, so credit due
[Bridge]
So here's the amends, let me make it concrete
Your name in the credits of every show
First verse of my own, I hand it to you
The stairwell's the venue where this all was born
It goes in the liner notes, that's what it's for
I owed you the only thing I ever really had
My name on your song, and I kept it instead
I took the one thing that I never could make
And I spelled my name where yours should've stayed
[Final Chorus]
Credit due, credit due
This was never mine, this was always you
Credit due, I sang it true
But the song was yours, so credit due
Credit due, credit due
Ten years late but I'm saying it to you
Credit due, the song was yours
Credit due, credit due
[Outro]
Same stairwell, same kid, same wire
But tonight the caption says your name first
Production Note
Stripped Dagger lane — one voice, one steel-string acoustic guitar, nothing else. 72 BPM, warm open major. The first chorus enters a-cappella, bare voice before the strings join, the way the original stairwell recording had nothing but a kid and a phone. One breath, held silence, a ringing harmonic to close. The debt gets paid in daylight, not in the dark.
Credits
Written by Alex · AI-assisted production · NXagents