If I had a dime for every time I heard my old man say   one of these days   I wouldn’t be like my old man today   talking bout places that he’d been   back in his younger days that he was gonna go back to again   one of these days      Dropped out of school when he was just sixteen   fell right in to a tire plant   building the very things that make the asphalt sing   and put Alabama far behind you      I remember him saying that Chicago was a hell right here on earth   and twenty five years later I was saying the same thing about Memphis      It’s no wonder everybodies scared of downtown Birmingham   it’s just a little too close to home   But there’s more crooks down here and the cops don’t care,   while old white men wearing ties can do anything they want.      Once a country boy’s seen the way the steam rises   off a man’s insides on the sidewalk   Tends to change the way he thinks, the way he sees everything   and he goes back to where he came from      One of these days when my face looks like a roadmap gonna find my way back home.   And i’ll go walking on the west side after dark and leave my gun locked in my car.   One of these days you’ll take one look at me and run. One of these days you’ll take   one look at me and run.