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 tryin 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 workin't to live beats livin' 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
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 singin' an old man's song
Payin' with my last dimes
But workin't to live beats livin' to work anytime

Sometimes at night I wake with a shiver
Sweat soakin' clean through my sheets
Then I remember I am who I am
Not who they said I would be
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 singin' an old man's song
Payin' with my last dimes
But workin't to live bea ts livin' to work anytime