Track Insight / Lyrics
Morning shift at Golden Gate
Fog eats the headlights, seals my fate
Salt air rusts the coffee can
Quarters stack like mountain sand
Drivers stare through windshield gray
Drop their change and drive away
No one asks how deep the water
No one asks the toll man's daughter
Fog toll, fog toll, I know the sound
Bay takes the coin and holds the ground
Fog toll, fog toll, the ledger's full
Mist writes the checks that I can't pull
Red Chevy, nineteen sixty-three
She paid with dimes and smiled at me
Didn't ask for a receipt or change
Just drove into the fog's strange range
Fog toll, fog toll, I know the sound
Bay takes the coin and holds the ground
Fog toll, fog toll, the ledger's full
Mist writes the checks that I can't pull
Now the booth is gone to rust
Cables hum in wind and dust
I walk the pier where collectors stood
Counting fog like firewood
Tourists snap the cable lines
Forget the hands that drew the lines
My apron's traded for a coat
Still count the boats that never float
Coffee's cold in thermos steel
Pier planks groan beneath my heel
Each step a quarter, each breath a toll
The bay collects what makes me whole
Fog toll, fog toll, I know the sound
Bay takes the coin and holds the ground
Fog toll, fog toll, the ledger's full
Mist writes the checks that I can't pull
Fog toll, fog toll, I know the sound
Bay takes the coin and holds the ground
Fog toll, fog toll, the ledger's full
Mist writes the checks that I can't pull
Fog toll, fog toll, I pay it still
The bay keeps every quarter, always will
Quarters rest on the windowsill
Fog toll, fog toll, paid in full
