Carhartt jacket on, 5:30 am, feelin’ like the ace of spades,
Fifteen years old, work ‘til the sun comes, then I’m off to school again.

Working my back as a young man, taught me I’d rather work my mind,
So we’d cop a little smoke and crack a couple jokes, just trying to learn to survive.

I wanted to work to live, no not just live to work,
I had a deep pain in my bones beneath my t-shirt.
I was a young man signing an old man’s song, paying with my last dimes,
But working to live beats living to work anytime.

I had a teacher, she told my mother,
That she’d better find me a trade,
Because boys like me, well we all grow up,
To be long term guests of the state.

I worked hard because I had to, I never found much luck,
‘Til I built my world ‘round a Georgia girl who told me that I was enough.

Sometimes at night I wake with a shiver, sweat soakin’ clean through my sheet,
But then I remember I am who I am, and not who they said I would be.

I wasn’t born with nothin’ except a voice and common sense,
Maybe that’s why I took running the first chance that I had.