I Always Looked Out For My Boy

Verse 1

Seventeen and a borrowed dress

Said I do to a boy who was always leaving

Eighteen candles barely blown

And a baby crying in my arms that evening

Verse 2

Back to work with a stitched-up heart

Six weeks old and I kissed his head goodbye

Came home to an empty drawer

And a man who slipped off with everything I'd saved

My boy was sleeping through it all

Chorus

So I held him closer

Held him longer

Told him mama's here

Told him nothing's wrong

The world kept taking

But I kept giving

I always looked out for my boy

Verse 3

Three years on I tried again

A second hand that felt like shelter

Two more years and the same old wind

Blew the roof off everything I'd gathered

He left us standing in the door

Chorus

So I held him closer

Held him longer

Told him mama's here

Told him nothing's wrong

The world kept taking

But I kept giving

I always looked out for my boy

Verse 4

Married a third and we packed the truck

Carolina to the cold Atlantic

Better jobs and cheaper rent

Every town a little further from the last one

He grew jealous of my son

Verse 5

Watched my baby learn to read the room

Watched a grown man shrink beside him

Then the doctors took him in

And I sat in that hallway all alone

Still thinking of my boy

Chorus

So I held him closer

Held him longer

Told him mama's here

Told him nothing's wrong

The world kept taking

But I kept giving

I always looked out for my boy

Bridge

Four years later I said yes one more time

And this one stayed

We ate we slept we drank our coffee

Side by side for forty years

Then I held his hand and watched him go

And the quiet came in like a tide

Verse 6

Now my son comes by on Sundays

Fixes the sink he mends the gate

Says mama you don't have to carry it

Says mama I have always known

You always looked out for your boy

Chorus

And I hold him closer

Hold him longer

Say my boy is here

Say there's nothing wrong

The world kept taking

But we kept giving

I always looked out for my boy

I always looked out for my boy