[Verse 1]
Vina keeps the clippings sorted
County obituaries in plastic bins
Folded dates and funeral columns
Neighbors, brothers, husbands, kin

She can tell you who worked third shift
Who came home and who got sick
Who got buried out by Pike-ton
And who never should have been

[Verse 2]
Now the men are back in daylight
Gold shovels in the April ground
Talking jobs and supercomputers
Like nobody is buried here

PORTS comes back with newer signs
Another name above the gate
New nuclear - new money coming
Same county, another sell

[Pre-Chorus]
Same road to the plant gate
Same promise in a different voice
Same hand waving toward tomorrow
Same cost sold to us as choice

[Chorus ]
Obituaries in plastic boxes
Stacked up room by room by room
Nuclear county, nuclear memory
Every clipping keeps its place

Obituaries in plastic boxes
Kept because somebody has to know
What they built here, what they left here
What came through with midnight rockets

[Verse 3]
Zahn’s Corner had its classrooms
Air ducts, ceiling tiles, school bells
Children learning county history
Breathing what came through the vents

One girl barely reached her twenties
One more notice, one more young face
You can call it background levels
She breathed it every day

[Chorus]
Obituaries in plastic boxes
Stacked up room by room by room
Nuclear county, nuclear memory
Every clipping keeps its place

Obituaries in plastic boxes
Kept because somebody has to know
What they built here, what they left here
What came through with midnight rockets

[Outro]
If the future wants this valley
It can start by saying who it used
Obituaries in plastic boxes
And a county still keeping proof