[Intro - fingerpicked figure, alone]

[Verse 1 - plainspoken, testimony]
Eighteen years and four days off a bus
Two meals eaten all that week
Nursing one cold coffee in a diner booth
Too proud and tired to speak
He had silver at his temples
He had a beautiful coat
He said sweetheart you look hungry
And ordered without looking at the note

[Chorus - quiet, chilling, slide guitar under]
Kindness with a hook in it
Tastes just like the real thing
Warm bread on a cold night
You never feel the sting
When nobody has ever
Held a door or pulled a chair
You'll follow the first open hand
Anywhere

[Verse 2 - bass enters]
He asked me where my home was
He asked me what I could do
He asked if anyone was waiting
Like the answer mattered too
And I said the truth: said nobody
Watched him check it like a box
Some men fish with dynamite
This one fished with talk

[Chorus]
Kindness with a hook in it
Tastes just like the real thing
Chicken dinner, gravy
You never feel the sting
When nobody has ever
Once asked about your day
You'll hand the first man asking
Your whole self on a tray

[Bridge - solo voice and guitar]
They wait at the bus stations
Like the mail, like the tide
They can spot the girl that no one wants
From a parking lot away
It isn't the pretty they look for
It's the empty at the eyes
An empty girl is easy
An empty girl's a prize

[Verse 3 - drums enter soft, the reckoning]
I have done a lot of hard math
In the years since I got free
But the cruelest bill I ever paid
Was itemized to me
One dinner, one kind hour
One coat across one storm
Five years I paid for that chicken dinner
Five years to keep him warm

[Final Chorus - low harmony joins]
Kindness with a hook in it
Tastes just like the real thing
Until a different kindness
Came asking nothing
And I know the difference now
I'll teach it to my girls
Real kindness sets the table
And leaves you your whole world

[Outro - picked figure stops mid-phrase]
He had silver at his temples
He had a beautiful --