Dirty Work

 

I always said I was going to be a writer

Never thought I’d end up a six-to-fiver

Now I don’t want to stop getting my hands dirty

Say I don’t want to sit behind a desk until I’m at least thirty

I’m scribbling lyrics on the iron in soap-stone

Memorizing, writing lines when I go home

I sweat side by side with cheap labor from Mexico

But I learned how to walk the steel from some Navajos

Yeah, I used to hold little respect for those worker bees

Thought the had no brains because their hands weren’t clean

Now I know the pretty boys wouldn’t have roofs over their heads

Or to place their lazy Boys and desks

If it weren’t for these men all covered in grime

I too wear that sweat and filth with pride

And every day I play with fire right under the sky

My little girl told her teacher I do iron work

She thought that meant I slave starching, pressing white collar shirts

Nah, I do the dirty work, but on the weekends I wear a skirt

And I sure as hell could never hack it as a sales clerk!