A demented soul lost in an echo chamber …
Boss of the Bunker is a protest song about what happens when people trade thought for loyalty. It’s slow and sharp, built on country bones and Southern dirt. It doesn’t preach—it remembers. The man in the bunker isn’t the only one under fire. It’s also about the ones who stood by, cheered him on, and called it faith while the floor cracked under their boots.
[Verse 1]
He don’t read — just runs his mouth
Paces the floor in that house down south
Won’t take questions, won’t explain
Points a finger, shifts the blame
Slick as a dealer on a three-card trick
Feeds them lies and makes them stick
[Chorus 1]
Boss of the bunker, spray-on tan
TV’s blastin’, no real plan
Don’t want facts, can’t take the heat
He just needs a crowd to bleat
They cheer like he walked on the open sea
While the roof caves in — and they let it be
[Verse 2]
Fills the room with quiet men
Says, “Stick with me, you’ll win again”
Lifts you up, then takes your line
Signs your name and calls it mine
Says he’s strong, calls it fair
But he’s never fixed a damn thing there
[Chorus 2]
Boss of the bunker, fries gone cold
Mumblin’ stories already told
Keeps a list, forgets the names
Grins like none of it ever changed
Still talkin’ like he’s got work to do
Just a mirror and a fading view
[Bridge]
Take off the suit, the crooked grin
There’s a boy still shook within
Built a wall to block the sound
Now he can’t come back down
[Outro]
Here’s to the show that won’t let go
To the ones I love who don’t yet know
The flags, the lies, the golden name
I never bought it — but I feel the shame
Not for believing what I knew was wrong
But for losing folks to his siren song
Maybe the worst ain’t who he became
It’s watching good hearts burn in his flame
Gene Scott grew up on a tenant farm in Sheffield, Illinois, where strip mines swallowed the prairie and Euclid trucks hauled coal past the kitchen window. His father welded for International Harvester winters and pulled hogs from collapsed mine shafts. His mother drove a hundred miles round-trip to Bradley University three days a week, graduated with honors, and never let them miss a meal. Scott earned degrees from Illinois and Tennessee, married Lana Ferguson on her family’s front porch in Hancock County—the oldest residence in the county, where her Confederate ancestor is buried at the edge of the woods—and raised a son in the Appalachian foothills. His writing draws on Midwestern magical realism, generational memory, and the stories told around oak kitchen tables where stoker men and snake women once drank coffee.
