steel mill town

There's a house down the street from the place that I grew up in

It's got bright blue shutters and a doghouse in the yard

There's a man on the porch you can try but he won't say nothing

He's got big blue eyes but they can't see very far

He had a wife, two kids, and a white picket fence he loved it

Only time he ever left that house was for sunday church

Found god in the bottom of bottle when his wife went running

Then the mill shut down and the town took a turn for the worse

And oh that's just the way it goes

Oh, this place takes its tolls

I know I know

There's a dive with an old jukebox where my friends like smokin'

And there's a place upstairs that they rent months at a time

It's a real small flat and the door in the back stays open

For the high school kids to get high on their parent's dime

Asked a girl there once why her heart seemed so damn broken

It's a real sad tale but she smiled the whole way through

Well her mom got sick and her dad got hooked on hoping

And when the hope ran dry he found love in sex and booze

And oh, that's just the way it goes

And oh, this place takes its tolls

I know I know

There's a road out of town where the ground stays dry all winter

Nothing grows out there like the pines in the freezing cold

Never known someone to come back to this town a winner

Only thing this towns good for is getting old

Well the girl that I love can't drive out past those pine trees

Says her life is here and she can't just run away

Well I'll drive that road out of town where no one can hear me

Scream at the sky that I'll get out of here someday