Mat Kearney - Rochester lyrics

rate me

(This is my father's story

Michael P. Kearney

Born in Rochester, NY)

I was born in Rochester

To bookmaking man

Had a fake cigar shop with the games on in the back

See them coming and going

Let them ride on thoroughbreds

Police chief and tarball wondering what was the spread

Carried rich men's bag through the branch

Trying to chase down the little white ball

I learned that any soft place wasn't good for me at all

Daddy come home fired and

Looking forward for some sort of release

He beat the hell out of Timmy, Timmy beat the hell out of me

Chorus

I would hop the fence out to those government fields

Run til there was there was nothing more to feel

Lying there watching planes just disappear

Knowing one day I'm gonna fly up out of here

Well that same police chief came knocking my first freshmen day

Put my daddy in handcuffs and his picture on the front page

Took every one of his suits, and all my dignity

Walked the halls of Irondequoit waiting for a napalm to set me free

Chorus

Well I got the call to Vietnam, just like everyone else I knew

So scared of the handgrenades, threw them farther than any other troop

Came home like an iron first, and Timmy tried to take my keys

Ripped open his front pocket, that was the last time he touched me

Moved to an island out west, up to Breckinridge

Met a mermaid on a glass boat and she promised me some kids

Bought a house in Oregon where you could touch both of the walls

Had a son named Benjamin, and I was so scared of it all

Benjamin walked in the front room where I was cutting up my hash

Looked into those deep blue eyes, wondering why I'd been so mad

Flushed a quarter pound down the drain, praying for the mercy to confess

Trying to rip the boy from Rochester right out of my chest

We're gonna walk right out into those heavenly fields

Run like there was no more time to steal

My three boys in the grace of God I feel

Knowing one day I'm gonna take me out of here

Knowing one day you're gonna take me out of here

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Thanks to A Rochesterian for correcting these lyrics