Lyr Add: Cost of Livin'

Subject: Lyr Add: Cost of Livin'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Sep 12 - 02:48 PM

Lyr. Add: COST OF LIVIN'
Phillip Coleman, sung by Ronnie Dunn

Everything to know about me
Is written on this page
The number you can reach me
My social and my age
Yes I served in the army
It's where I learned to shoot
Eighteen months in the desert
Pourin' sand out of my boots
No I've never been convicted of a crime
I could start this job at any time.

(Chorus)

I got a strong back
Steel toes
I'm handy with a wrench
There's nothing I can't drive
Nothing I can't fix
I work sun-up to sun-down
Ain't too proud to sweep the floors
Bank has started calling
And the wolves are at my door
Three dollars and change at the pump
Cost of livin's high and goin' up.

I put Robert down as a reference
He's known me all my life
We attend the same church
He introduced me to my wife
Gave my last job everything
Before it headed south
Took the shoes off my children's feet
The food out of their mouths
Yesterday my folks offered to help
But they're barely getting by themselves.

(Chorus)

I got a strong back ...

I'm sure a hgundred others have applied
Rumor has it you're only takin' five.

(Chorus)

Written by Phillip Coleman from Union City (Tennessee), revised and recorded in 2011 by the country singer Ronnie Dunn.
The song memorializes the Goodyear plant shutdown, July 10, 2011, when 1983 workers lost their jobs.

"The Cost of Living Blues," Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times, Sept. 2, 2012.

""Cost of Livin'" is part ... of country music that includes Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons," Merle Haggard's "Working Man's Blues," Johnny Paychek's "Take this job and shove it," Gillian Welch's "Hard Times," and Dolly Parton's "9 to 5." Like them, it holds nothing back." Comment by Edsall.