What She Had To

I was three years old sitting in the seat
 Of a Greyhound bus, my brother and me
 Mama's tears falling like a Carolina rain
 'Cause she pulled out a gun the night before
 Said he ain't gonna drink and hit me no more
 She pulled the trigger on my father in a moment's range
 Thank God that gun wasn't loaded
 Didn't know where to go or how she'd survive
 Didn't care, anywhere but there that night
 Now she held her babies tight
 And we rode through the cold of the midnight blue
 She was scared, she was broke but all she knew was
 She was gonna do what she had to
 She got her a job in a trailer out west
 It wasn't much but she was doing her best
 Putting food on the table for her family
 But then one day I came home from school
 My mama was crying alone in her room
 She said,? I lost my job and we're gonna lose the trailer too?
 And she got that Volkswagen loaded
 Didn't know where to go or how she'd survive
 Didn't care, anywhere but there that night
 Now she held her babies tight
 And we rode through the cold of the midnight blue
 She was scared, she was broke but all she knew was
 She was gonna do what she had to
 Whenever things go wrong in my life
 I just think of her, what it took that night
 To get on that bus in the Carolina rain
 Didn't know where to go or how she'd survive
 Didn't care, anywhere but there that night
 She held her babies tight
 And we rode through the cold of the midnight blue
 She was scared, she was broke but all she knew was
 She was gonna do what she had to
 What she had to
 What she had to
 What she had to