[Verse 1]

Got out of prison back in '86

And I found a wife

Walked the clean and narrow

Just trying to stay out and stay alive

[Verse 2]

Got a job at the rendering plant

It ain't going to make me rich

In the darkness before dinner comes

Sometimes, I can feel the itch

[Chorus]

I got a cold mind

To go tripping 'cross that thin line

I'm sick of doing straight time

[Verse 3]

My uncle's at the evening table

Makes his living running hot cars

Slips me a hundred-dollar bill

Says, "Charlie, you best remember who your friends are"

[Chorus]

I got a cold mind

To go tripping 'cross that thin line

I ain't making straight time

[Bridge]

Eight years in

It feels like you're gonna die

But you get used to anything

Sooner or later, it just becomes your life

[Verse 4]

Kitchen floor in the evening

Tossing my little babies high

Mary's smiling, but she's watching me

Always out the corner of her eye

[Verse 5]

Seems you can't get

Any more than half-free

Step out onto the front porch

And suck the cold air deep inside of me

[Chorus]

I got a cold mind

To go tripping 'cross that thin line

I'm sick of doing straight time

[Verse 6]

In the basement

Hunting gun and a hacksaw

Sip a beer and thirteen

Inches of barrel drop to the floor

[Verse 7]

Come home in the evening

Can't get the smell from my hands

Lay my head down on the pillow

And go drifting off into foreign lands