Nothing Was Given to Me

NOTHING WAS GIVEN TO ME

Nothing was given to me,

I didn't get nothing for free

Worked more than my share,

Please don't call it fair

There's plenty that got worse than me.

No, nothing was given to me.

I'm a mailman,

in the union,

I fought in Korea

I'm a Republican because those Democrats

want to give the world away

I give three dollars to the church every Sunday

and I put a quarter in the poor box

I grew up in Soho

I quit school in the sixth grade

because my mother kept five kids

on seventeen dollars and fifty cents a week

and I worked for a dude who worked my butt off

and paid me grit and robbed me blind

and let me work just enough hours a week

that I could not get relief

and I hate him

to this very day

My brother spent half his life learning a trade

and still has to work two jobs to keep his family

My sister got herself an education,

Now she lives with my mother.

She drinks coke all day, takes pills, watches t.v.,

and looks like hell

My mother goes to 8 o'clock mass every morning

and prays all day

For the good Lord to take her away.

My father died when I was nine

cause he couldn't take it

Now, I'm the only one who visits his grave

I go there three times a year and trim the weeds

Nothing was given to me,

I didn't get nothing for free

Worked more than my share,

Please don't call it fair

There's plenty that got worse than me.

No, nothing was given to me.

My bones ache I might die tomorrow

The bank owns my house, car and furniture

My house is falling down and sinking into the mines

My furniture is coming apart

My car is rusting away like it has cancer

I don't drink anymore

cause the doctors said it would kill me

I don't smoke anymore

cause the doctors said it would kill me

I don't do anything anymore

except come home from work,

clean the house,

eat cold food out of a can,

then sit on the back porch

with nothing to bother me till it gets dark

The doctors say nothing about that

I have two sons and a daughter

I tell them to take everything they can get

Only don't get what I got

Don't get what I got.