And the Asphalt Burns

Intro
Tempo: 105 BPM
[Acoustic guitar strumming, joined by muted electric guitar lead and steady upright bass]
​[Verse 1]
There’s a tally mark on the driver’s side
Cut in the steel where the rust don't hide
I don't haul cattle and I don't haul grain
Just forty tons of quiet pain
Up and down state route sixty-nine
Counting the poles on the dotted line.
​[Verse 2]
My mother said I had an open hand
Too soft a heart for a hard-scrabble land
So I traded the dirt for a steering wheel
And traded my soul to a box of steel
Now the interstate hums like a choir of lead
Singing to the living, ignoring the dead.
​[Chorus]
And the asphalt burns, but the diesel cools
This highway’s paved with the debt of fools
No silver spurs, no smoking gun
Just a working man running out of sun
Yeah, the road don't care where you oughta be
It just stretches on for eternity.
​[Guitar Solo]
[Muted, rhythmic electric guitar riffing over the steady "boom-chick" rhythm]
​[Verse 3]
I met a man at a midnight pump
Eyes sunk deep in a low-rent slump
He looked at my rig and he looked at my hands
Said, "Son, you look like a ruined man."
I paid for my gas and I bought my lead
And I left him standing in the dark instead.
​[Verse 4]
There’s no law following in my rear
Just five thousand miles of a wasted year
I didn't break jail and I didn't shoot down
A stranger out in a border town
I just walked away from a life turned sour
And I measure my freedom by the mile an hour.
​[Chorus]
And the asphalt burns, but the diesel cools
This highway’s paved with the debt of fools
No silver spurs, no smoking gun
Just a working man running out of sun
Yeah, the road don't care where you oughta be
It just stretches on for eternity.
​[Outro]
Forty tons of quiet pain...
Down state route sixty-nine...
Just rolling line by line...
[Steady boom-chick rhythm fades out with a final heavy bass note and single acoustic chord strum]