Twenty Years of Steel

Verse

Twenty years of steel...

Twenty years of stone...

Spent half my life surrounded,

Still never felt so alone.

Those walls knew my secrets,

Those bars knew my name.

Every time that gate slammed shut,

I had nobody left to blame.

Chorus

Lord, these prison walls

Can hear a grown man cry.

They'll take your years one by one,

And never tell you why.

Verse

I carried all my demons

Like chains around my soul.

I thought I was too far gone...

Too broken to be whole.

Then they shipped me north one morning,

To a place called CMC.

I figured it was one more stop

On a road that buried me.

Six long months of waiting,

Till they finally called my name.

I never dreamed that fire

Would burn away my shame.

A man walked through that doorway,

Didn't wear a guard's old blue.

He said, "Son, I need firefighters...

And I believe in you."

Down at that old firehouse,

I found a different road.

Saving strangers' lives somehow

Helped lighten my own load.

I watched some people make it,

I watched some fade away.

You learn how precious life becomes

When tomorrow ain't promised today.

Chorus

Lord, these scarred old hands

Once reached for all the wrong.

Now they're pulling people from the flames,

Trying to help them carry on.

The fire burned around me,

But something else burned too.

The man I used to be...

Turned into someone new.

Four and a half years later,

That prison gate swung wide.

My woman stood there waiting,

With tears she couldn't hide.

Now I've got grandkids calling,

A wife who knows my heart.

I still fight old ghosts sometimes,

But they don't tear me apart.

Outro

If freedom has a heartbeat,

I've finally found its sound.

Out here in this desert wind,

My soul's on solid ground.

Twenty years of steel...

Couldn't steal this man.

The blues still live inside me...

But they don't own who I am.