From the recording Everything Else Was Noise
One Four Three
Some songs say something simple that still carries the whole weight of a heart.
“One Four Three” is built around one of the simplest ways to say I love you: one letter, four letters, three letters. But sometimes the simplest words are the hardest ones to say out loud, especially when life, pride, distance, hurt, or time have gotten in the way.
This song is about the kind of love that does not need to be dressed up to be real. It is a reminder that three little words can still matter deeply, even after years have passed, even after mistakes have been made, and even when the people involved do not always know how to say everything they feel.
At its heart, “One Four Three” is a love song in its plainest, most honest form. Sometimes all a heart is trying to say is still just this: I love you.
— Lane Alan Dumser
Lyrics
I met you in our own season
When I thought I knew my name
Still half-built and half-broken
Tryin’ hard to look the same
Didn’t have much wisdom
Just a hunger to be seen
And somehow three small numbers
Said what we couldn’t speak
You’d hold one finger up
Then four, then three
And I’d feel the whole world
Go quiet inside me
One, four, three
Still cuts through time to visit me
Back to who I was
Before life got hard to read
It wasn’t just “I love you”
It was “I see what others don’t see”
And some part of me
Still answers one, four, three
I’ve had roads take me sideways
I’ve had years I don’t explain
Made peace with most my ghosts
Learned to bless the pain
But now and then it finds me
In some ordinary place
A number on a clock somewhere
And I’m right back seein’ your face
No letters in a shoebox
No storybook proof
Just a quiet code between us
And the ache of knowin’ it was the truth
One, four, three
Still cuts through time to visit me
Back to who I was
Before life got hard to read
It wasn’t just “I love you”
It was “I knew the real you underneath”
And some part of me
Still answers one, four, three