[Verse]
A cheap motel room on the highway out in the Soo
The winter of eighty-seven, Crown Royal buzz and you
I was twenty-three and running
dead I couldn't name my old man's toolbox on the floor, a burgundy-tinted shame

The six cylinders out there idling
Sheet rock walls were paper thin, a heater glowing light
I grabbed my boots, I grabbed my coat, left 70 pounds of his whole life behind beneath the frozen leaf

[Chorus]
And I can still hear that idle, a low and patient hum
While the broken offset screwdriver sits where it was struck from
And the ball-peen hammer with the cracked handle waits for me
And the fish tape coiled like rosary beads I'll never be thread free

[Verse]
That hammer swung a thousand times shaping metal settin' stone
settin' stone the screwdriver still stubborn stripped a sin to call my own
Now it's just a cork in a bottle of the guilt I'll never fold

I made it back to Thunder Bay
Told nobody what I done, kept... told nobody what I done, kept it locked up like a walkin' frosty block
But every time I use a tool, every time I snap clean I feel that 70 pounds of memory leaning on my spleen

[Chorus]
And I can still hear that idle, a low and patient hum
While the broken offset screwdriver sits where it was struck from
And the ball-peen hammer with the cracked handle waits for me
And the fish tape coiled like rosary beads I'll never be thread free

[Bridge]
Now I'm sixty-eight and pouring slabs that I can never set right
'Cause I left his legacy behind on that godforsaken night
Now I'm sixty-eight and pouring slabs that I can never set right
'Cause I left his legacy behind on that godforsaken night
The only thing I stole was my own past, a rusted heirloom lost
And the Crown Royal on the dresser was the tally of the cost

[Outro]
Just a six cylinder idling in the Soo
And the burgundy toolbox I ran away from
Sittin' cold beneath a cheap motel lamp
Waitin' for a man who never came