Carolina

I started out as a light in my father's eye at a Texaco Momma was working overnights on Sam Wilson Road She was a madcap, teenage runaway, a year past graduation She was new in town and he was burning down the place with infatuation She fired red hot buckshot Distress calls across the parking lot A rebel reeling from the feelin' of rooting around for a little repose They chased sunrise with moonshine After tusslin' and mutterin' secrets all night I started out as a light in Carolina I started out as a light in Carolina Well, I started out as a light in my mother's eye many years ago In the numbing fires of live wires loose in foster homes From my grandpa's fist to my mother's lip, there's an ancestral impression An American inheritance of trauma and depression She fired red hot buckshot Distress calls across the parking lot A rebel reeling from the feelin' of rooting around for a little repose They chased sunrise with moonshine After tusslin' and mutterin' secrets all night I started out as a light in Carolina I started out as a light in Carolina From the birth canal to the whistle of emergency sirens You've got a lot of skins to wear as you try to figure out who you are And it don't matter what people say, don't expect them to understand It ain't nobody, no one else's mistake, life is not always the things you plan Some of us have childhoods that aren't poems on sight But, darlin', you're doing alright