I started out as a light in my father's eyes at a Texaco
Momma was working overnights on Sam Wilson Road
She was a madcap, teenage runaway, a year past graduation
She was new in town and he was burning down
A place with infatuation

She fired red hot buckshot
Distress calls across the parking lot
A rebel reeling from the feelin' of rooting
Around for a little repose
They chased sunrise with moonshine
After tusslin' and mutterin' secrets all night
I started out as a light in Carolina
I started out as a light in Carolina

I started out as a light in my mother's eyes many years ago
In the numbing fires of live wires loose in foster homes
From my grandpa's fist to my mother's lips
there's an ancestral impression
An American inheritance of trauma and depression

She fired red hot buckshot
Distress calls across the parking lot
A rebel reeling from the feelin' of rooting
Around for a little repose
They chased sunrise with moonshine
After tusslin' and mutterin' secrets all night
I started out as a light in Carolina
I started out as a light in Carolina

From the birth canal
To the whistle of emergency sirens
You've got a lot of skins to wear
As you try to figure out who you are
And it don't matter what people say
Don't expect them to understand
It ain't nobody someone else's mistake
Life is not always the things you plan
Some of us have childhoods that aren't poems on sight
But, darlin', you're doing alright