Everyday Opus - Charlie Parr

The streets in this part of town are all made out of dirt

And there aren’t any streetlights for when I get up to go to work

The road grader comes once in awhile to fill in all the holes

And leave a ridge of gravel to trip me as I go

There aren’t any sidewalks here, just ditches into yards

And folks get kind of upset when you’re walking through their lawn

So I keep it on the roadway and try to move along

If they see me when they’re driving they’ll always blow their horn

All up and down this street these houses all look the same

In the greying of the twilight I can’t recall a single name

Of any of my neighbors or the faces of their kids

Only the kinds of cars they drive and if their dogs are tied

Walking in these shoes isn’t as easy as you’d like

Dodging all the bricks that are breaking all my lights

We all have to struggle and hold it as our truth

It’s about as special for me as it is for you

Now I’m on the highway overpass waiting for the bus

To take me to my job in a downtown office cleaning up

The scraps of paper nonsense that the office workers throw

Into waste bins full of chewed gum and empty cans of Faygo

But I don’t know who they are or even how they look

I only know the jokes they have pinned up in their nook

This one likes football, that one has a pup

Here’s one who’s real messy and never picks it up

I clean it up before they arrive and head out to my bus

Or maybe i’ll stay downtown and get a little lunch

At the diner near my job if I have some extra cash

Or maybe I’m too tired today so I’ll go home to crash

Walking in these shoes isn’t as easy as you’d like

Dodging all the bricks that are breaking all my lights

We all have to struggle and hold it as our truth

It’s about as special for me as it is for you

I keep all the doors shut to the other rooms in my house

That I don’t want to heat and no one lives here now

But me and I don’t take up very much space

Just the front room with my bed and the kitchen and the bath

I’ll make a little supper and watch a little TV

I usually feel too restless to find a book and read

So I eat too many chips and drink too many beers

And the evening drains away and I fall asleep in my chair

Sometime on a weekend I think I’ll visit a friend

And remember all our old times and see how they have been

But it feels like a lot of effort to explain myself again

So I’ll just wait and see if they’ll visit me instead

Walking in these shoes isn’t as easy as you’d like

Dodging all the bricks that are breaking all my lights

We all have to struggle and hold it as our truth

It’s about as special for me as it is for you

I woke up the next morning before my alarm could go off

I was fuzzy from the beer and too tired to get up

I tried calling in to my boss but she wouldn’t answer her phone

I can’t afford to lose this job so I put some coffee on

I pulled on the same clothes i had on the night before

No one ever saw me anyway it never mattered what I wore

So I locked the door behind me and I started on my walk

Along my gravel street and downtown to my work