[Intro] Yeah… I don’t really talk about this much… But this how it was… [Guitar Intro Bridge] [Verse 1] I grew up in a house where money stayed low My mom worked domestic, just trying to cope She came back tired from cleaning other homes While ours felt heavy… like something was wrong My dad was around but there wasn’t work Just silence and pressure you could feel in the air It was me and my sister watching it all My half-brother stayed somewhere else We had a TV, black and white on the screen Tried to cover it up, make it look like a dream Used cloth just to fix what we couldn’t repair Small things like that… yeah, they mattered back there Candles every night, that was normal life Didn’t question the dark, I was used to the night And the house was brick but that didn’t mean safe ‘Cause hunger shows up no matter the place I remember a time when the food ran out Garden full of tomatoes but they weren’t ready now Still green, not something you’re meant to eat But hunger don’t wait, it don’t give you peace My mom cooked them anyway, made something from it And we sat and we ate ‘cause we had nothing coming I thought it tasted fine, didn’t think twice Now I know that was hunger in disguise My dad had goats and a few sheep too Not much, but enough just to hold onto Then one day they gone, never seen again And that loss hit deeper than it sounds in the end [Hook] No shoes on my feet but I walked that road No food in the house but we carried hope Candles in the dark, yeah that’s all I know Now I stand tall but I don’t let go They laughed at my name, tried to break my soul From a place where surviving was the only goal If you know that pain, then you know that truth I came a long way from them days with no shoes [Verse 2] School wasn’t easy, I already knew Shoes falling apart before I even got through Then one day the tongue came off in class And I sat there quiet, trying to get past Next day I walked in with nothing on Barefoot, just trying to keep moving on Three days like that, same road, same heat Cold in the morning, burning my feet Teacher looked at me like I didn’t care Didn’t see what I carried, just saw I was there Kids laughed at my eyes, said I looked strange Turned it into jokes, made it something to shame That kind of thing stays, it don’t just go It settles inside, starts shaping your thoughts My confidence dropped before it could grow I started believing what they said about me But I could sing, that was one thing true And in class I worked, kept pushing through School became less about learning itself More like a place to escape everything else Then we had to move, couldn’t stay where we were Something about losing the place if things got worse Ended up in a shack, roof leaking in rain Cold nights, glass on the floor, dealing with pain My sister kept going, she made it through Top of her class, did what she had to do Still took years just to get a job That’s when I saw life don’t always respond So I studied hard, not ‘cause I loved it But ‘cause I knew where life could end if I didn’t Years later now, things finally changed Service manager, life rearranged Four kids in my life, that’s something I hold Two step, one mine, one more on the way And I’m building a life I never once knew Trying to prove something… mostly to myself, it’s true That you can come from nothing, really start low And still find a way to build and grow (Hook) No shoes on my feet but I walked that road No food in the house but we carried hope Candles in the dark, yeah that’s all I know Now I stand tall but I don’t let go They laughed at my name, tried to break my soul From a place where surviving was the only goal If you know that pain, then you know that truth I came a long way from them days with no shoes (Bridge) No Shoes No Shoes No Shoes I came a long way from them days with no shoes [Outro] I still remember… The candles… The hunger… The walking… No shoes… Still made it…
