Craftsmanship

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