Steel Ledger at 3AM (version 3)

Intro

Punch clock breathing, steam like a ghost

Machine don't sleep, so I don't close

Verse

Line don't stop for a man run dry

Sodium glow on a factory sky

Conveyor rolling, my hands keep time

Counting the hours like they're not mine

Foreman's clipboard, red ink bleeds

Same twelve hours, same tired needs

Chain-link rattling, cold through the vent

Working the graveyard just to cover the rent

Pre-Chorus

Tell me when the tally breaks

Tell me when the debt untakes

Line keeps moving, hands stay cold

Counting hours I'll never hold

Chorus

Steel ledger at 3AM

Numbers add up to nothing again

Steel ledger at 3AM

Punching the clock, paying it in

Verse

Break room coffee gone bitter and thin

Old man's shift is where mine begins

Twenty years he walked this floor

Same red ink under the same steel door

Interest climbing while the drill bits spin

Paycheck short of the hole I'm in

Sodium lights over empty lots

Counting the shifts like connect-the-dots

Pre-Chorus

Tell me when the tally breaks

Tell me when the debt untakes

Line keeps moving, hands stay cold

Counting hours I'll never hold

Chorus

Steel ledger at 3AM

Numbers add up to nothing again

Steel ledger at 3AM

Punching the clock, paying it in

Bridge

Not the hours, it's the hope that's spent

Not the debt, it's the years I lent

Steel don't care what a man believes

Steel just counts what the steel receives

Chorus

Steel ledger at 3AM

Numbers add up to nothing again

Steel ledger at 3AM

Punching the clock, paying it in