What She Had To

I was three years old sitting in the seat

Of a Greyhound bus, my brother and me

Mama's tears falling like a Carolina rain

'Cause she pulled out a gun the night before

Said he ain't gonna drink and hit me no more

She pulled the trigger on my father in a moment's range

Thank God that gun wasn't loaded

Didn't know where to go or how she'd survive

Didn't care, anywhere but there that night

Now she held her babies tight

And we rode through the cold of the midnight blue

She was scared, she was broke but all she knew was

She was gonna do what she had to

She got her a job in a trailer out west

It wasn't much but she was doing her best

Putting food on the table for her family

But then one day I came home from school

My mama was crying alone in her room

She said, „I lost my job and we're gonna lose the trailer too”

And she got that Volkswagen loaded

Didn't know where to go or how she'd survive

Didn't care, anywhere but there that night

Now she held her babies tight

And we rode through the cold of the midnight blue

She was scared, she was broke but all she knew was

She was gonna do what she had to

Whenever things go wrong in my life

I just think of her, what it took that night

To get on that bus in the Carolina rain

Didn't know where to go or how she'd survive

Didn't care, anywhere but there that night

She held her babies tight

And we rode through the cold of the midnight blue

She was scared, she was broke but all she knew was

She was gonna do what she had to

What she had to

What she had to

What she had to