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