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