What Work Is

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[Verse 1]
Yeah, I used to work with a guy 
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named Frankie Acosta
We were butter strippers down at the
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 Challenge Creamery
Striping the cardboard off of 
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seventy pound cubes of butter
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Yeah, it was hot back then summer 
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of nineteen sixty-three


[Verse 2]
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And Frankie, man, he'd get so angry
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He'd say, "See what the women make 
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me do"
Then he'd break of a splinter from a
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 dirty wooden pallet
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And stick it like a knife in one of
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 those big old butter cubes


[Chorus]
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That's what work is
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That's what love is
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A little pleasure and a little 
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misery
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Now every time it gets hard out here
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I think of L.A. back in nineteen 
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sixty-three
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Hey, hey


[Verse 3]
Then I got a job working for the 
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city of Englewood
Continues after the ad
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Running chipper, chipping limbs off
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 of trees
I worked with a guy named Crazy Dave
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 Mackland
And one day he almost ran a tractor 
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over me


[Verse 4]
We were out chopping weeds near 
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South Central
When the riots broke out and the 
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skies turned a fiery red and brown
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And I called up my girlfriend on a 
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payphone and said "Baby, I love you
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But, ah, I think god's gonna 
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finally burn Gomorra down

She said


[Chorus]
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That's what work is
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That's what love is
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You build a house of straw and the 
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flames lick the sky
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Now every time I fall in love out 
here
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I think of L.A. back in nineteen 
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sixty-seven


[Instrumental]
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[Verse 5]
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I finally got a job driving a rose 
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truck
Santa Barbara, midnight, to L.A., 
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Fifth and Main
All jacked up on coffee, cheap speed
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 and doughnuts
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Walking around the L.A. Flower 
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Market in the rain


[Verse 6]
And every morning I'd eat breakfast 
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at The Pantry down on Figueroa
The waiters were always old time, 
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ex-cons
Then we'd load the truck back up 
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with empty rose boxes
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And drive on up the coast through 
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the California dawn


[Chorus]
            Am
That's what work is
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That's what love is
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Two eggs over easy on a T-bone 
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steak
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Every time I see the sunrise on the 
ocean
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I think of L.A. back in nineteen 
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sixty-eight


[Chorus]
            Am
That's what work is
            F
That's what love is
         Am                   
A little pleasure and a little 
     G    F
misery
          G            Am
Now every time it gets hard out here
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I think of L.A. back in nineteen 
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sixty-three