[Verse 1]
Corner of Dunmore and Ninth, that busted hoop, no net
Summer we were ten, mosquito bites and sweat
Your mama's station wagon, backseat always sticky
Split one grape popsicle, purple-lipped and picky
Called ourselves blood brothers, didn't need a knife for it
Now I scroll your wedding photos, standing stiff beside it
Last real talk we had was junior year, the bleachers
Planning our escape like this town was full of leeches
Then the schools changed, then the phones changed, then the highway changed the map
No big blowup, no slammed door, no final scrap
Just a slow fade, like a shirt washed way too many times
Color keeps on leaving till you can't read the lines
[Chorus]
No fight, no fire, just the slow fade out
Nobody's wrong, there's nothing to shout about
We didn't break, we just forgot to call
Guess that's how some best friends fall
[Verse 2]
So last Tuesday night I'm digging through a drawer
Find the photo of us dressed as pirates, you were first mate, I was more
Didn't text you "hey stranger," felt too thin, too small
Wrote a song about the creek that ran behind the mall
One about your dad's grill, one about the water tower paint
Burned it into eight tracks, called it "Dunmore, No Complaint"
Sent the whole thing quiet, no explaining, no big speech
Let the chorus do the work my mouth could never reach
'Cause some things built in childhood don't translate to a text
A song can hold the years in ways a phone call never gets
Don't know if you'll answer, don't know where it lands
But the tape's in your hands now, out of my hands
[Bridge]
Maybe you'll play it once and cry out in your car
Maybe it gets deleted, lost like we both are
Can't rewind the bleachers or the backseat heat
Growing apart don't come with closure, clean and neat
Some friendships don't end, they just lower the volume
Still, some part of your name lives inside my album
[Verse 3]
Saw your brother at the gas station off Route Nine
Said you moved to Austin, said you're doing fine
Didn't ask for your number, didn't ask him to relay
Some bridges you let rust instead of burn away
I drove past the old house, new family, different porch light
Stood there like a ghost in my own hometown at night
Funny how a street can hold a hundred versions of you
The ten-year-old, the bleacher kid, the one I barely knew
Maybe that's the truth about the people we outgrow
We don't lose them all at once, we just watch them slowly go
Like a station fading out somewhere past the county line
Still playing, just too far to tune the signal right
[Chorus]
No fight, no fire, just the slow fade out
Nobody's wrong, there's nothing to shout about
We didn't break, we just forgot to call
Guess that's how some best friends fall
[Chorus]
No fight, no fire, just the slow fade out
Nobody's wrong, there's nothing to shout about
We didn't break, we just forgot to call
Guess that's how some best friends fall
[Outro]
No fight, no fire, just the slow fade out
Guess that's how some best friends fall