=== Lyrics Generated by Suno AI ===
Task ID: unknown_1773670582
Variant: 1
Title: Rust On My Diploma
Status: complete
Generated: 2026-03-16 14:16:22
========================================

[Verse 1]
Gate clanged shut behind me
Carried out a paper sack
State shoes
Stale tobacco
Twenty summers I can't get back
Community college Tuesdays
Janitor on the night shift floor
Wrote essays in the break room
Degree taped to a metal door

[Chorus]
I got rust on my diploma
Mud on these secondhand boots
Started out bagging up backyards
Laughing at the mess and the truth
There's a past that still wakes me up shaking
But the future pours coffee at dawn
Yeah
I built a life from the gravel
And I just keep walking on

[Verse 2]
Boss man in the pickup
Said
"Kid
You work like you got paid"
I shrugged and tied another knot
Thought of all my debts unpaid
Harbor job on a cold dock
Stacking crates in the sodium glow
Salt air burned my cracked hands
But the days stopped feeling so slow

[Chorus]
I got rust on my diploma
Grease on these secondhand boots
Pulled graveyards down in the shipyards
Arguing the price of the truth
There's a past that still calls me collect
But the number's been long turned off
Yeah
I built a life from the overtime
And I just keep walking on

[Bridge]
Met her in a laundromat
Book in her lap
Rain in her hair
I told her the worst thing I'd ever done
Waited for her empty stare
She said
"Ain't nobody just one story"
Folded my shirt along the seam
We learned to live past the headlines
Kept a key under the dream

[Chorus]
We got rust on our diploma
Crayons on these thrift store walls
Kids asleep in the backseat
Grocery bags and late work calls
There's a past that still rides in the rearview
But the road sings a softer song
Yeah
We built a life from the wreckage
And we just keep driving on