The streets in this part of town are all made out of dirt And there aren't any streetlights for when I get up to go to work The road grader comes once in a while to fill in all the holes And leave a ridge of gravel to trip me as I go There aren't any sidewalks here, just ditches into yards And folks get kind of upset when you're walking through their lawn So I keep it on the roadway and try to move along If they see me when they're driving they'll always blow their horn All up and down this street these houses all look the same In the greying of the twilight I can't recall a single name Of any of my neighbors or the faces of their kids Only the kinds of cars they drive and if their dogs are tied Walking in these shoes isn't as easy as you'd like Dodging all the bricks that are breaking all my lights We all have to struggle and hold it as our truth It's about as special for me as it is for you ♪ Now I'm on the highway overpass waiting for the bus To take me to my job in a downtown office cleaning up The scraps of paper nonsense that the office workers throw Into waste bins full of chewed gum and empty cans of Faygo But I don't know who they are or even how they look I only know the jokes they have pinned up in their nook This one likes football, that one has a pup Here's one who's real messy and never picks it up I clean it up before they arrive and head out to my bus Or maybe I'll stay downtown and get a little lunch At the diner near my job if I have some extra cash Or maybe I'm too tired today so I'll go home to crash Walking in these shoes isn't as easy as you'd like Dodging all the bricks that are breaking all my lights We all have to struggle and hold it as our truth It's about as special for me as it is for you ♪ I keep all the doors shut to the other rooms in my house That I don't want to heat and no one lives here now But me and I don't take up very much space Just the front room with my bed and the kitchen and the bath I'll make a little supper and watch a little TV I usually feel too restless to find a book and read So I eat too many chips and drink too many beers And the evening drains away and I fall asleep in my chair Sometime on a weekend I think I'll visit a friend And remember all our old times and see how they have been But it feels like a lot of effort to explain myself again So I'll just wait and see if they'll visit me instead Walking in these shoes isn't as easy as you'd like Dodging all the bricks that are breaking all my lights We all have to struggle and hold it as our truth It's about as special for me as it is for you ♪ I woke up the next morning before my alarm could go off I was fuzzy from the beer and too tired to get up I tried calling in to my boss but she wouldn't answer her phone I can't afford to lose this job so I put some coffee on I pulled on the same clothes I had on the night before No one ever saw me anyway it never mattered what I wore So I locked the door behind me and I started on my walk Along my gravel street and downtown to my work