Four alarm fire on the six o’clock news
Hearin' the truth and it’s turnin' some screws
Three to one odds, it’s the five o' clock blues
I’m feelin' and bleedin' and dealin'
Aces & twos, nearly poppin' a fuse
Watchin' the news
Flamin' Hot Cheetos, hot Doritos,
& girls on the street
Who incinerate my brain
Raise a cup, fill me up, speed up my destruction
A young man’s dream, livin' it to the extreme
Givin' me (shit)tons of memories, bruises, scars,
And courthouse games
Wouldn’t trade it for anything
Least I didn’t go up in flames
Up in flames
See(in') your body, just brings me pain
Think(in') of our time here together again
Your touch, your kisses, soft secret whispers:
βNo one to blameβ
The heat of our bodies drives me insane
In the hot summer rain
Lost in a fire, my darkest desire
Up in flames
Cheetos picantes, y Doritos, chicas de calle
Que inicinerar mi cerebro
Levanta una copa, llΓ©name, acelera mi destrucciΓ³n
El sueΓ±o de un joven, vivirlo al extremo
Dr. Pepper bottle caps
He popped the cork and made a button
Stuck it on my Haynes white t-shirt
Not yet stained with oil and dirt
Roger Miller tunes
Fading as he revved the engine
Showin' me how to use them tools
And paint straight with precision
Like the smell of gasoline
And the sound of the machines
The engine hoist he didn’t really need
Strong enough to lift a block
He shows up in my dreams
Old tools, lined up straight
Classic country, George and Tammy
A tall man at the workbench fills my memory
The heat of summer, cold of winter,
The smell of gasoline
One day that tower falls
Strongest man I ever seen
Couldn’t leave his chair unaided
TV dinner and a TV screen
Saw the broken pride
As we took our dinner down the street
I should have stayed, I knew that then
And kept him company
I know that I don’t match up
What a disappointment I could be
To a man who built things with his hands
And fought wars overseas
Dying in a rundown ward
He’s waitin' to be set free
And in the sadness of my dreams
I still smell gasoline
We played them old Atari games
Like baseball on TV
Just like I do with my son now,
More like my Dad than I’ll ever be
I was 28 years old
Sittin' on an ER bed
Watching my 9 month old son
Toddle in with his mama again
One more time
I get beat up outside a bar
That wicked old mouth on me
When I’m drunk
And I’ve gone too far
And I don’t want to give it up
And I just lost a job that I need
And I think the day I quit
Gonna be the worst day of my life, to me
Then I run away
And I miss my boy’s first birthday
And I have my last drink
Somewhere in New York City
On my worst day
Lord knows, I couldn’t stay
Three thousand miles away
From the boy I hoped to raise
From the boy I hoped to raise
The good Lord done for me
What I could never, never do myself, you see
And lifted a great weight from me
On my worst day
On the day I watch him graduate
And walk on down the aisle
And everyone, they celebrate
As I drink my Coke and smile
And I send up a prayer of thanks
For my worst day
Jim Reeder is an experienced actor, including over 100 performances at Ford’s Theatre (Washington, D.C.) and a byline as a featured performer at Theatre Royal Drury Lane (London). Jim also devotes his talents to songwriting, with numerous songs broadcast on national television over the course of many years. Jim is a voting member of the Television Academy. His songs Texarkana, Late November, ‘65 Impala, The Girl Who Loved, As Eagles Fly, and Capistrano appear in UCLA’s literary journal Westwind. His song Black Dancer appears in Hare’s Paw.