Buck 65 - Craftsmanship lyrics

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