Ronnie Dunn - Cost Of Living

This election isn't about whether Donald Trump is mean.  It's not about whether Hillary Clinton is corrupt.  They both are, but that's not the issue facing the electorate.

Nearly a year ago, the Queen Of The World and I got married.  We got the marriage license at the court house in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.  It's a charming old court house in a spectacular seeing location.  The people there are incredibly nice, honest, and hardworking.

And they're poor.  The court house is charming because the county can't afford a new one, and so they carry on with the existing 1890s era building.  It's a little grand for what the town has become, as the mines have shut down and jobs have fled.

Marlington, West Virginia is in good company.  If you're outside Silicon Valley, Manhattan, or Washington D.C., the economy has been stalled for a couple decades or more.  We've been told that globalization is inevitable, and that it's good for the economy.  We've been told that a rising tide floats all boats, that the wealth inevitably trickles down.

We've been told this by both political parties.  And we've gradually watched as our neighbors have lost their jobs, their houses, and their dreams.

This election is not about whether Donald Trump is mean.  It's not about whether Hillary Clinton is crooked.  They both are, but that's getting lost in minutia.  This election is about honest people who want jobs and can't find them.  It is about our neighbors and their hopes for their children's futures - a hope that the American Dream isn't yet extinct, and a desperate hope that their children can have a better living than they had.

Donald Trump is, quite frankly, the only person talking about this.  I have no idea at all whether his ideas will work or not, but nobody but him has the guts to look the Auto executives in the eye and tell them that if they close American plants and move them to Mexico, he'll slap a 35% tariff on their products.  Maybe that won't work, but after 20 or 30 years of watching globalization fatten Wall Street bottom lines, the voters of Marlinsburg, WV and Union City, TN may have finally tired of lectures from their "betters".

We shall see next Tuesday.  In the mean time, Ronnie Dunn sang this dynamic; sang it well enough to get two Grammy nominations.



The plant in this video was the Goodyear Tire Plant in Union City, TN.  It closed in 2011.

Cost of Living (Songwriters: Phillip Coleman, Ronnie Dunn)

Everything to know about me
Is written on this page
The number you can reach me
My social and my age
Yes I served in the army
Its where I learned to shoot
Eighteen months in the desert
Pourin sand out of my boots
No Ive never been convicted of a crime
I could start this job at any time.

I got a strong back
Steel toes
I rarely call in sick
A good truck
What I dont know
I catch on real quick
I work weekends
If I have to
Nights and holidays
Give you 40
And then some
Whatever it takes
Three dollars and change at the pump
Cost of livins high and goin up.

I put Robert down as a reference
He's known me all my life
We attend the same church
He introduced me to my wife
Gave my last job everything
Before it headed south
Took the shoes off of my children's feet
The food out of their mouths
Yesterday my folks offered to help
But theyre barely getting by themselves

I got a strong back
Steel toes
I rarely call in sick
A good truck
What I dont know
I catch on real quick
I work weekends
If I have to
Nights and holidays
Give you 40
And then some
Whatever it takes
Three dollars and change at the pump
Cost of livins high and goin up.

I'm sure a hundred others have applied
Rumor has it you're only takin' five

I got a strong back
Steel toes
I'm handy with a wrench
There's nothing I can't drive
Nothing I can't fix
I work sun-up to sun-down
Ain't too proud to sweep the floors
Bank has started calling
And the wolves are at my door
Four dollars and change at the pump
Cost of livins high and goin up.