Second Shift

Supper's on the stove but I won't be there to eat
I kiss her on the forehead and I head out to the street
The whole town's sitting down to rest just as I'm standing up
And I trade the dinner table for a time card and a truck

So I pull the second shift
While the rest of the town sleeps
Every hour that I give
Is an hour I don't keep
Let 'em have my back, my sweat, the strongest years of me
I'm buying her a life I never got to see
On the second shift

Coffee gone cold, a photo in my locker
She hit a home run tonight, I caught it on the phone
The foreman calls me steady, says I'm one of the good ones
But steady's just a nice word for never coming home

So I pull the second shift
While the rest of the town sleeps
Every hour that I give
Is an hour I don't keep
Let 'em have my back, my sweat, the strongest years of me
I'm buying her a life I never got to see
On the second shift

One day these hands will rest, one day the floor hums on without me
And if she asks me where I was when she was growing tall
I'll say the times were lean and hard, and the money always short
But I carried all the weight so you'd never feel that small

So I pull the second shift
While the rest of the town sleeps
Every hour that I give
Is an hour I don't keep
Let 'em have my back, my sweat, the strongest years of me
I'm buying her a life I never got to see
On the second shift