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Words from the artist’s archive
DRIVE IT THROUGH lyrics
Artist-supplied lyric sheet, matched by title. The sheet may differ from this released performance. Production notes and alternate promotional cuts are omitted.
Read the lyric sheet
Intro
Three a.m. hum, the dryers still spinning yeah
Verse 1
Pull up on 27th, headlights wet foam gun in my fist, I ain't paid off the debt twelve-fifty an hour plus whatever you tip Honda came through with a crack in the windshield lip I don't ask what happened, I just hose down the seat red on the floor mat, somebody bled in that Jeep I wipe it like a priest wipe a confession away clock says it's morning but it's dark out till May my cousin got the bay next to mine, he don't talk just nods at the Chargers, just sprays off the chalk we the last clean thing before you face your wife twelve dollars a vacuum, that's the price of a life
Pre-chorus
Cars come dirty, they all leave shined I know what you did, I just stay behind the line roll your window up, keep your story to you I scrub it off the chrome, that's all I ever do
Chorus
Drive it through, drive it through let the brushes take whatever's on you I don't judge it, I don't keep it, I just rinse midnight, 27th, where the guilty come to cleanse Drive it through, drive it through I been up since the sun left, look what it left me to soap in the gutter running gray to the drain everybody come clean and they leave just the same
Verse 2
Lady in a Lexus with the mascara wreck gripping the wheel like the road owe her a check she ain't say a word, paid in quarters and shame I gave her the towel and I ain't ask her her name backseat full of toys but the ring finger bare I run the warm water like I actually care 'cause maybe I do, maybe I don't, who can tell when you spend half your nights washing somebody's hell my knuckles got the bleach in 'em, white at the crack I'm twenty-six watching headlights, ain't going back to a day shift, a clock punch, a name on a tag I'm the ghost in the steam by the water and the rag
Pre-chorus
Cars come dirty, they all leave shined I know what you did, I just stay behind the line roll your window up, keep your story to you I scrub it off the chrome, that's all I ever do
Chorus
Drive it through, drive it through let the brushes take whatever's on you I don't judge it, I don't keep it, I just rinse midnight, 27th, where the guilty come to cleanse Drive it through, drive it through I been up since the sun left, look what it left me to soap in the gutter running gray to the drain everybody come clean and they leave just the same
Verse 3
Last car of the night got no plates on the back seats already empty, trunk smell like a sack the driver hand me fifty, say keep all the change look me dead in my eye like we both know the game and I took it. I'm tired. I got rent on the third I dried off the handle and I ain't said a word maybe that make me dirty, maybe cleaner than most I'm the one washing sins for a man and his ghost sun coming up now, the lot turning gold I lock up the bay with the secrets I hold go home to my mama, she ask how I been I say fine. I say tired. I don't tell her where I been
Bridge
What you can't wash off, you just carry what you can't carry, you let it drive away I been the last stop before the daylight for everybody got something they can't say drive it through for everybody got something they can't say
Chorus
Drive it through, drive it through let the brushes take whatever's on you I don't judge it, I don't keep it, I just rinse midnight, 27th, where the guilty come to cleanse Drive it through, drive it through I been up since the sun left, look what it left me to soap in the gutter running gray to the drain everybody come clean and they leave just the same
Outro
Foam gun down. Lights off. Gate locked. That's the shift.
Inside the recording
Three a.m. hum, the dryers still spinning yeah
Cars come dirty, they all leave shined I know what you did, I just stay behind the line
Foam gun down. Lights off. Gate locked. That's the shift.
Excerpts from artist-supplied lyric files matched by title. Lyric sheets may differ from the released performance.