RAKE AND STICK (FOR EVERY MOTHER AND FATHER WHO HELD IT IN) – Lyrics

Title: Rake and Stick (For Every Mother and Father Who Held It In)
Artist: Loui Crow
Streaming: All platforms
🔗 Linktree: https://linktr.ee/louicrow
📱 TikTok: @louicrow

🖤 ABOUT THE SONG — RAKE AND STICK
This is a love song for the ones who held it in. The mothers who bit their tongues and smiled through rupture. The fathers who swallowed fire and carved devotion into silence. I wrote this to move what they never got to. To let it scream without passing harm.

The rake digs through maternal silence. The stick walks with father’s restraint. These are more than tools—they are portals. I use them to carry grief forward, and then let it die. This is movement as forgiveness. Rage turned into rhythm. A storm made sacred.

There is no blame in this. Only breath. I don’t call out—I call back. I call back the parts of me shaped by pain, softened by lineage, and still brave enough to move. This is my thunder cry. I am the rake. I am the stick. I am the one who broke the chain and kept the love.

🔽 SCROLL DOWN for the full lyrics. Then come back up for the body-spell ritual and breakdown.

🔥 CROW BODY-BREAKDOWN — What Generational Silence Really Is
It’s the tightening in your jaw when you bite back truth. It’s the twitch in your shoulder when you want to strike but freeze. It’s the clench in your belly when you hear their voice in yours. Generational silence is a ghost in the bones. A hand-me-down hush.

You were trained to hold it. Now you’re here to unearth it.

🗣️ Crow Affirmation:
“I carry the weight. I swing the grief. I let it die.”

🕯️ Ritual: The Thunder Line
— Stand with feet planted wide. Breathe low into the belly.
— Grip your fists like tools—rake in one, stick in the other.
— Whisper: “I move for them.”
— Stomp once. Let the body speak.
— Whisper again: “Amen.”

🖤 CROW TRUTH
They gave me silence. I gave it rhythm.
They gave me weight. I made it holy.
They gave me grief. I let it scream.
They gave me fear. I passed it back with love.
This is how the curse ends—with open hands.

🖋 LYRICS — RAKE AND STICK (FOR EVERY MOTHER AND FATHER WHO HELD IT IN)

(OPENING – SPOKEN SPELL, BUILDING WITH DRUM FX)
I take the rake for the mothers
who buried their grief in the garden.
Who bit their tongues 'til they bled.
Who raked their rage into silence and smiled instead.
I take the stick for the fathers
who swallowed their fire to survive.
Who held back the hit, held back the howl,
and carved their love into a walking vow.
This is for them.
This is the work.
This is the weight I choose to unearth.

(CHORUS – CHANTED, STOMP AND RAKE SCRAPE FX)
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I get my stick and break the dam.
I rake the dirt. I stir the dust.
I drag the pain they passed to us.
I swing the grief. I let it land.
I walk this line with open hands.
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I carry it, and then—Amen.

(VERSE 1 – SPOKEN GRIT, BUILDING)
Mama held it all in her jaw.
Broke her teeth on her daddy’s law.
Never hit me—but her voice did.
A rake for a tongue. Shame where she hid.
She scraped herself down just to stay small,
Fed us hope through a drywall wall.
She whispered dreams she never had.
Laughed like a woman gone half-mad.
Said, “Cowgirl up” Said, “Be Quiet.”
Said, “Don’t speak your pain too loud.”
She was grace with a fractured grip—
I watched the silence become her whip.

(CHORUS – LOUDER, WITH DRUM PULSE)
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I get my stick and break the dam.
I rake the ground. I stir the dust.
I drag the pain they passed to us.
I swing the grief. I let it land.
I walk this line with open hands.
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I carry it, and then—Amen.

(VERSE 2 – SPOKEN-WAIL TO CHANT)
Daddy never raised his hand,
But silence hit like contraband.
He held his heart in lecture loops,
Taught us fear in father suits.
His stick was clean, but it still shook.
Voice like gravel. Gaze like a hook.
He didn’t hit—but damn, it stung
To be the daughter he taught to run.
He flinched when I flinched. That’s the thread.
He patched the wounds but left the dread.
His ghosts sat close. His love came thin.
I carried him—I carry him.

(CHORUS – MULTI-VOICE CHANT WITH FX)
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I get my stick and break the dam.
I rake the leaves. I stir the dust.
I drag the pain they passed to us.
I swing the grief. I let it land.
I walk this line with open hands.
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I carry it, and then—Amen.

(BRIDGE – SPOKEN, SLOW)
To all the mothers who bit their tongues,
To all the fathers who came undone,
To all the sons who braced for weight,
To all the daughters who raged too late:
You gave me tools wrapped in pain.
I broke the handle. Named the chain.
But now I stand, rake in my grip,
Stick at my side. Breath on my lip.

(CHORUS – “HOLY END”)
Holy, holy, hear the crack—
we’re the ones who won’t look back.
Foot to floor, heart still loud,
we are the ones who broke the shroud.
I am the rake.
I am the stick.
I am the spell.
I am the click—
the moment the curse slipped off the line,
the scream that split ancestral time.
Holy, holy, thunder cry—
I didn’t pass it on.
I let it die.

(CHORUS – FINAL, LAYERED AND FIERCE)
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I get my stick and break the dam.
I rake the leaves. I stir the dust.
I drag the pain they passed to us.
I swing the grief. I let it land.
I walk this line with open hands.
I rake for them.
I rage for them.
I carry it, and then—Amen.

(OUTRO – WHISPERED LOOP WITH RATTLE FX)
I rake. I rage. I forgive. I live.
I rake. I rage. I forgive. I live.

💔 What pain or struggle is this blog addressing?
The silent grief passed down through survival.
The generational pressure to stay quiet, stay small, to hold it all without breaking.
The tension locked in jaw, gut, and fists—the weight of what was never spoken.
The way that unspoken rage becomes illness. The way that silence settles into the body as pain.

🧠 How does the reader feel different by the end of this? What’s the soul win?
They feel witnessed in their inherited ache—and powerful in their choice to break the rhythm.
They understand that rage can be holy when it’s moved with care.
They learn that expression is medicine. That movement is the cure.
They leave with the knowing: “I carried it, and then—Amen.”