[Intro]
(piano, slow build)
Yeah…
[Verse 1]
Twenty three on an oil rig with nothing but my name
No father in my ear to tell me how to play the game
Hundred hours a week in conditions no man should know
Metal that could kill you in the cold below
Watched guys get hurt and still showed up the next day
Learned that being a leader means you’re last one to walk away
Made sure every man I worked with made it home at night
That’s where I learned what it meant to do something right
[Hook]
Nobody sat me down and told me how to be this
Figured it out bleeding through the bleakest
Season of my life, no dad around to show me
Had to build the man inside before anyone could know me
[Verse 2]
My dad and I we tried, dinners when I got back
Oil field was West Virginia, built something from that
But those years in Wisconsin, Colorado, on my own
Left a gap between us neither one of us has owned
He don’t understand why I show up every day
Coach every sport, never let the distance get its way
Because I know what it costs when your father isn’t there
I paid that price — my son never will, I swear
[Bridge]
(stripped back)
I built myself in the oil field
With my hands and my back
Men who depended on me
And no room to crack
I carried all of that here
Into this house, this role
Being the man I never had
Is the only thing I know
[Chorus]
He looks at me before he steps out on that mat
Handshake, eye contact, just like that
In his corner every time he goes to war
That’s what a father’s for
Every lesson I missed I’m putting in his hands
Every moment I lost I’m giving while I can
My best friend in this world puts everything in me
So I put everything in him
That’s where I need to be
[Verse 3]
The pressure every morning when I wake
Is the weight of everything at stake
I look in the mirror and ask one thing
Is he proud of what he sees in me
Not just the good days, the easy ones
But the hard ones when I come undone
I think about that handshake, straighten out my spine
He’s building everything off mine
[Chorus]
He looks at me before he steps out on that mat
Handshake, eye contact, just like that
In his corner every time he goes to war
That’s what a father’s for
Every lesson I missed I’m putting in his hands
Every moment I lost I’m giving while I can
My best friend in this world puts everything in me
So I put everything in him
That’s where I need to be
[Final Bridge]
My dad did what he knew how to do
I love him for that, that part is true
But I know what absence costs a kid
I lived it, I felt it, I carried it
So I show up different every single day
Because I know the price when fathers walk away
[Outro]
That handshake before the match
Every couch I slept on
Every rig I bled on
Every morning I chose to keep going
All of it leads right here
To him looking at me knowing I’m not leaving
I’m just his dad
And that’s everything
