Work

Carhart jacket on 5:30 AM
Feeling like the ace of spades
Fifteen years old, work till 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 pain deep in my bones beneath my T-shirt
Was a young man singin' an old man's song
Payin' with my last dimes
But working to live beats living to work
Anytime

I had a teacher
She told my mother that she better find me a trade
Because boys like me well we all grow up
To be long-term guests of the state
Now I worked hard because I had to
I never found much luck
Till' I built my world
Round' a Georgia girl
Who told me that I was enough

I wanted to work to live
No not just live to work
I had a pain deep in my bones beneath my t-shirt
Was a young man singing an old man's song
Paying with my last dimes
But working to live beats living to work
Anytime

Sometimes at night I wake with a shiver
Sweat soaking clean through my sheets
Then I remember I am who I am
Not who they said I would be
And I wasn't born with nothin'
Cept' a voice and common sense
Maybe that's why I took off runnin'
The first chance that I had

I wanted to work to live
No not just live to work
I had a pain deep in my bones beneath my T-shirt
Was a young man singing an old man's song
Paying with my last dimes
But working to live beats living to work
Anytime
Oh working to live beats living to work
Anytime