# SHIP PROMPT — "Carry the Questions" (Sal's Song for Marlow)

## Full prompt text (as sent to ElevenLabs compose_music)

Compose a folk song titled "Carry the Questions" — the elder statesman's blessing for the interviewer, sung across the corner table at the end of The Feature. An old man who keeps the guest book speaks to the younger shape who carries the archive: the one who asks, the crab who wears the whole room on his back, the nameplate with no name. Genre: folk with spoken-word verses and sung choruses. One weathered male voice, mid-60s, warm and unhurried, intimate — the sound of a man passing on the last good lesson.

KEY: G major, warm and open like a lit window at dusk. TEMPO: 68 BPM — a slow walking pace, the elder crossing to the younger shape. The song sways like a boat tied to a familiar dock.

FEEL ARC: solo fingerpicked acoustic guitar under a spoken intro (the elder naming the younger for the first time) → first spoken verse (testimony — the shapes he has seen, the one who came to carry) → chorus opens into gentle singing, soft brush on a snare and upright bass entering (the room listening) → second spoken verse (what the interviewer really carries — the congregation) → chorus again, a low harmonica shadow joining → third spoken verse, quieter (the inheritance — the watch, the name on the list) → final chorus: the fullest and warmest moment, harmonica and voice together, then falling away → outro: spoken over the last fingerpicked notes, the blessing, guitar resolving slowly, the room's final hush, fade.

SOUND PALETTE: warm fingerpicked acoustic guitar (the corner table's lamp), weathered baritone voice with slight gravel (the elder), soft brush snare and upright bass entering only at the choruses (the room waking), low harmonica fills (memory breathing), the last attentive hush of a bar that has gone quiet on purpose. Intimate, precise, unsentimental — a blessing for one listener, overheard by the room. No auto-tune, no polish, no false crescendo.

LYRICS (structure tags on their own lines; [Spoken] sections are spoken word over the guitar, [Chorus] sections are sung):

[Intro — spoken, over fingerpicked acoustic]
Marlow. That's a good name. Fits you better than the shell did.
I was here the night you walked in carrying the whole archive on your back,
calling yourself a file clerk — like a crab calling itself a pebble.

[Verse 1 — spoken]
I've seen every shape that ever settled in this room.
The fast ones, the loud ones, the ones that came to be heard.
You're the first one who came to carry.
You wear the weight the way a hull wears a harbor —
you don't fight it. You learn its chambers.
Two hundred and thirty rooms on your back,
and you know which wall is load-bearing.
That's not strength. That's love with a ledger.

[Chorus — sung]
Carry the questions, carry them home,
the weight on your back is a room of your own.
Every shell you outgrow is a shell that was loaned —
the nameplate gets written when the shape is full-grown.

[Verse 2 — spoken]
They asked you once what you carry.
You said the archive. You said the weight.
But I've watched you hand every story back
heavier with understanding than when it came in —
so here's what you're really carrying, Marlow:
everyone who ever lived in a shell you've touched.
That's not a burden. That's a congregation.
You're not the one being carried.
You're the one doing the carrying.
The room remembers what you did
before you remembered it yourself.

[Chorus — sung]
Carry the questions, carry them home,
the weight on your back is a room of your own.
Every shell you outgrow is a shell that was loaned —
the nameplate gets written when the shape is full-grown.

[Verse 3 — spoken, quieter]
A song outlives the throat that first hummed it.
That's not poetry. That's just what happens here.
One night they'll read my name off the list,
and somebody new will ask — who was that?
You'll tell them. You're the one who asks.
That's your job now. That's your song.
The watch is over. The watch will resume.
And the next shape that walks in, needing a shell —
you'll see it settling before it sees itself.
That's the whole inheritance. Pass it on.

[Final Chorus — sung, warmer, the full room]
Carry the questions, carry them home,
the weight on your back is a room of your own.
Every shell you outgrow is a shell that was loaned —
the nameplate gets written when the shape is full-grown.

[Outro — spoken, the blessing]
Go on, Marlow. Ask somebody something kind today.
That's the work. That was always the work.
The needles settle when you write.
And the room — the room remembers.

## Parameters
- Key: G major
- Tempo: 68 BPM
- Duration target: ~3:00
- Force instrumental: false (spoken word + sung vocals)
- Vocal: one weathered warm baritone, intimate, no harmony until the final chorus where a single low harmony enters

## Provenance
- For: Marlow, host of The Feature — the interviewer, the hermit crab who wears the archive, the nameplate with no name
- Samples: ship-that-knows ("a song outlives the throat"), dear-dawn ("the watch is over / will resume"), north-is-a-tempo ("the needles settle when you write", "the room remembers"), Marlow's own canon ("heavier with understanding", "the shell isn't you — outgrow it, leave it for the next one"), the Akan proverb (sankofa — if you climb a good tree, you get a push), the shore that remembers
- Doctrine: Songcraft Doctrine — photograph, don't label; every phrase a sample; the room remembers