Lyrics

My Daddy moved here at the age of 10
His Mamma said son you'll be a man
You're gonna grow up tall
Gonna grow up right
And along the way you better learn to fight

He was a desperado with a switch blade knife
A voice as mean as sin
He kept everything he owned in a gunny sack
It was the wrong side of the tracks
We're on the wrong side of the tracks
He was playing with fire out on the wrong side of the tracks

When I came along he was 17
He was half in love with a high school queen
He got a job at the old steel mill
They said watch your back or you might get killed

Me and some kids in the neighborhood
Formed a band called the Ramblin' Thugs
There was something we still lacked
We were on the wrong side of the tracks
Wrong side of the tracks
We were playing with fire out on the wrong side of the tracks

I gotta a girl, she loves me and I love her back
She said I'll dig ya more if you buy me that pink Cadillac
Yeah baby I just can't do that
We're on the wrong side of the tracks
We're on the wrong side of the tracks

Now my Daddy's long gone and my Mamma too
It's just me, my gal, and the house rent blues
I don't feel right when I wear a suit
So I'll keep on doing what I do

Yeah I rip it up every Friday night
It takes two six packs to make it right
You don't give me no lip or wise-cracks
We're on the wrong side of the tracks
On the wrong side of the tracks
You'd be playing with fire out on the wrong side of the tracks

I gotta job and it's just beyond them old smokestacks
At night we drink malt liquor
We don't drink no Cognac
Not on the wrong side of the tracks
The wrong side of the tracks

I spent 40 years with nothing to lose
Just an old guitar and a case of blues
There's more dirt in my fingernails
Than the back roads that lead to hell

We're on the wrong side
It's the wrong side of the tracks
We're on the wrong side of the tracks
Yeah baby it's the wrong side of the tracks
(Yeah but we're movin' on up)