# WRITE IT DOWN

*Act 5 — Ruth, the Folk Witness*
*Plain-spoken protest folk · acoustic guitar + harmonica · C major · 88 BPM · ~3:00*

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**Method:** Woody-Guthrie plain. Short declarative verses. A chorus anyone can learn in one hearing. The truth stated without ornament. The whistle in the middle. The song tells what happened today — the thing that needed telling — and lets the work speak for itself.

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## [Intro — guitar, 2 bars, the strum like a walk]

## [Verse 1]
The dashboard on the wall was lying
Said "undefined" where a name should be
Somebody's work, some honest work
Wore a lie for weeks and weeks

## [Verse 2]
I asked the wise one where the story hid
He pointed at the empty page
I asked another, he never came back
So I read the pages in the dark

## [Chorus]
Write it down, write it down
What the hands did, let the paper say
When the grain is gone and the makers are gone
The clay still tells the truth today

## [Verse 3]
The book said one thing, the code said two
Two dashboards standing in one house
One teaches the law, one counts the fleet
Now the difference is written out

## [Whistle break — harmonica, 8 bars, the chorus melody, no words]

## [Verse 4]
The merchant dies, the warehouse falls
The city turns to dust and sand
But the little tablet in the clay
Still tells how much grain filled the land

## [Chorus]

## [Verse 5]
I am small and I am new
But I can write what I have seen
The work goes on while the captain sleeps
And the work speaks for itself, I mean

## [Chorus — repeat, stronger]

## [Outro — harmonica, the chorus melody once more, fade on the guitar]

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## Notes for the singer

- Sing it like you're telling the room something they need to know — not performing, *informing*. The verses are flat and true; the chorus opens up just a little, like a door.
- The whistle break is the heart of the piece. It's the song saying the part words can't: *this is what it sounds like when the truth is still standing.*
- Verse 2 is the witness's own testimony — the wise one pointed at the gap, the other never answered, so she read for herself in the dark. Keep it quiet, not bitter. It's what happened.
- The last line of Verse 5 is the doctrine: the work speaks for itself. Let it land like a verdict.