The Way I Should Iris DeMent

[Verse 1]
A cold wind against my shoulder
It woke me up in the middle of the night
An autumn leaf was scraping against my window
Like it was trying hard to get inside
And then a ghost that I had met before, he kept me up till dawn
And everything I thought was right was suddenly all wrong
He said, "Your score is looking pretty bad"
And then he asked me what it was that I had to show

[Verse 2]
So I went running down a list of things
Some were real, but on some of them, I lied
'Cause I felt I had to justify each breath
That I'd been breathing in this life
Then I realized I was playing into someone else's rules
Trying to keep my score up in a game I did not choose
Then I looked that ghost straight in the eye
And said "You had better not be coming back by again"

[Chorus]
And it's true that I don't work near as hard
As you tell me that I'm supposed to
I don't run as fast as I could
But I live just the way I want to
And that's the way I should