"steel mill town" lyrics

Two, three, four

There's a house down the street from the place that I grew up in
It's got bright blue shutters and a dog house 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
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 a 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 toll
I know, I know

There's a dive with an old jukebox where my friends like smoking
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 getting high on their parents' 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
When the hope ran dry he found love in sex and booze

And oh, that's just the way it goes
Oh, this place takes its toll
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 here in winter
Only thing this town's good for is forgetting 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
And scream at the sky "I'll get out of here someday"