Most folks spend their days daydreaming or finding clues

My whole life I've been here at the train station shining shoes

I started when I was nine, on my own and taught myself

No complaints, I'm doing pretty good and I got my health

Memories and calluses, my hearing's probably next to go

Sometimes I do a little handy work for extra dough

But mostly this here is how I spend my time

And I've perfected a technique I call the dry shine

Some guys use lots of water on the shoe but then

When it's out in the open air it's gone in ten minutes

That whole approach to the job is dumb, in fact

Dollars to donuts, that customer won't be coming back

This is the most common mistake of the amateurs

Going for big numbers to satisfy their managers

Anyway, the dry shine, the first thing I mean to do

And this part is very important, I clean the shoe

The residue and old polish to keep the shoe from being ruined

All you need to do is use a rag with some cleaning fluid

If the shoe's all caked up with gunk you need to think

The shoe can't breathe and that's what causes the feet to stink

They took Carfoine off the market, I believe

It was a few years ago cause that leather couldn't breathe

Now once you've cleaned the shoe and it's dried

Your base coat of polish can now be applied

Then you brush, cause what that tends to do

Is clean the shoe a little more and gets rid of the residue

And then you do the second coat just like the first one

You brush it, you rag it, and voila, your work is done

And that's it, you treat each shoe like it's special

Care about your work, and be a professional

There's a right way to go about your job and a wrong one

I find this way is much better in the long run

It ain't about the dollar or trying to go fast

Unless you take pride in what you're doing, it won't last

Craftsmanship is a quality that some lack

You got to give people a reason for them to come back



The world's a different place than what I was introduced to

They don't wear shineable shoes like they used to

Casual clothes in the office, what is this

The villain in sneakers is killing my business