The bricklayer's story

Just a bricklayer by trade a harder worker you won't find
He was like fifty when I met him maybe fifteen years ago
A Scottish American and a master with the trowel
He swears that he's the urban legend you hear about on every job and site

A lifetime lifting cinderblocks, stacking bricks and mixing mortar
Gave this man his crooked walk and kept his life in order

Here's about half an explanation and then not too much information
Until the day he died he bragged that he's the one that rode the rope
All six stories of that building from the pavement to the roof
And then all the way back down to earth

A lifetime lifting cinderblocks, stacking bricks and mixing mortar
Gave this man his crooked walk and kept his life in order
A lifetime lifting cinderblocks, stacking bricks and mixing mortar
Gave this man his crooked walk and made his lifetime shorter

"On the way up my skull was fractured and my collarbone was broken
The barrel i was working with broke both of my forearms and the bones in my wrists"
Don't believe a word of it, but the one thing that I'm sure about is this:

A lifetime lifting cinderblocks, stacking bricks and mixing mortar
Gave this man his crooked walk and kept his life in order
A lifetime lifting cinderblocks, stacking bricks and mixing mortar
Gave this man his crooked walk [x3]
And made his lifetime shorter