[Intro — low, raspy hum over sparse acoustic picking + faint 808 sub rumble]

They put a price on everything except the things that matter most…

Forty hours buyin' groceries while the good years turn to ghost.

[Verse 1 — slow, intimate, voice cracking like dry timber, 808 hits sync'd tight to downbeat kicks]

I clock in at the break of dawn before the sun has hit the field,

Trade the hours of my living for whatever wages yield.

Do the math on what I'm making versus what it costs to breathe—

Rent and gas and lights and groceries and everything beneath.

Numbers never balance—Lord, they haven't balanced yet—

Every check I cash is gone before the ink has time to set.

Work the Monday through the Friday, push the overtime on through,

Still come up short on living while the living bill comes due.

[Pre-Chorus — steel weeps, heartbeat kick + locked 808 pulse rising slow]

The price of life keeps rising like it don't know what we make,

And the wages stay so still, Lord, like they're frozen at the lake.

[Chorus — full band erupts, raw-throated belt, gritty three-part harmony, massive 808 slides + synchronized bass hits slamming on every kick]

We work the price of living but the living don't pay back,

Stack the hours on the hours and still come off the track.

Mama worked her hands to bone and still came short each May,

Daddy drove that rig three states just to keep the lights okay.

I'm doing what they taught me—Lord, I'm showing up each day—

But the price of just existing keeps on pricing me away.

I'm a good man working hard at what good working's always been—

Can't balance out the ledger on the life I'm trying to win.

[Bridge — stripped raw: voice + piano + weeping steel, builds to primal roar, 808 sub hits locked and gliding for tension release]

But there's something broke inside the math that nobody wants to say—

That the ones who work the hardest can't afford to live their day.

That the price of heat and housing and the price of eating right

Keeps outrunning every paycheck by the middle of the night.

Lord I'm not the only one out here who's running this same race—

Good people working full time just to barely hold their place.

[Final Chorus — massive, defiant, voice breaking then soaring, 808s thundering in perfect sync with kicks for max impact]

We work the price of living and we'll work it every day,

'Cause the ones who came before us didn't have a better way.

Mama's hands are in my hands when I clock in every morn,

Daddy's miles are in my miles on every road I've worn.

Lord the ledger may not balance and the math may never clear,

But I'm showing up regardless and I'm still bringing it here.

I'm a good man in a broke system doing what good men do—

Working for the price of living 'cause the living's worth it too.

[Outro — fading steel cry, single piano chord lingers, whispered into the void, final 808 tail decaying slow]

Yeah… price don't balance.

Work don't cover life.

But I'm clockin' in tomorrow…