Listening to the radio as it crackled in the dark

Playing all them old songs, of cowboys lonely hearts

How they never needed nothing but freedom’s fabled glory

And the eagles flying freely always seemed to star in their stories

Cos when the call of the wild is calling you

and a cowboys life is what you want to do

but the man at the bank has got your reins

and he won’t let go – it just ain’t the same

Now I don’t know about them good old days or the sound of bull elks calling

I never tipped my hat at a county fair or smelled the sage in the morning

I never tied a hook to a fishing line and caught a rainbow in that stream

Cause I grew up in a working town smelling beer and shit and gasoline

Riding into town to meet their green eyed honeys

Or working on a fenceline with their good old cowboy buddies

Yeah, they might say that the work is hard and flies will chew your hide

Or that you could die if the steer stampede but the air is fresh and the sky is wide

you tell yourself that you’ll make it one day

beyond those hills somewhere far away

but the whistle blows and your shift begins

pack up your dreams, boy, and just punch in

So I never smelled the sweetness of the open range in the summer

The eighteen wheelers hauling black gold is the only rolling thunder

Listening to the old folks telling stories in grimy oily blue jeans

Cause I live in a working town smelling beer and shit and gasoline

Now I don’t know about them good old days or the sound of bull elks calling

I never tipped my hat at a county fair or smelled the sage in the morning

I never tied a hook to a fishing line and caught a rainbow in that stream

Cause I grew up in a working town smelling beer and shit and gasoline