Straight Time - Live at The Tower Theater, Philadelphia, PA - December 1995

Got out of prison back in '86

And I found a wife

Walk the clean and narrow

Just tryin' to stay out and stay alive

Got a job at the rendering plant

Well, it ain't gonna make me rich

In the darkness before the dinner comes

Sometimes I can feel the itch

I got a cold mind

I go trippin' cross that thin line

I ain't makin' straight time

My uncle's at the evening table

He makes his living runnin' hot cars

He slips me a hundred dollar bill

And says, "Charlie, you best remember who your friends are"

I got a cold mind

I go trippin' cross that thin line

I ain't makin' straight time

Well, each year's end

And it feels like you're gonna die

But you get used to anything

Sooner or later, it just becomes your life

Kitchen floor in the evening

I'm tossin' my little baby's eye

May smile, but she's watchin' me

Always out the corner of her eye

Seems you can't get

Can't get any more than half free

I step out onto the front porch

And suck the cold air deep inside of me

I got a cold mind

I go trippin' cross that thin line

I'm sick of doin' straight time

In the basement

A hunting gun and a hacksaw

Sip a beer and thirteen

Inches of brown drop to the floor

I come home in the evening

I can't get the smell from my hands

I lay my head down on that pillow and

Go driftin' off in the farmland