Punk Rock Saved My Life

My dad sold women's shoes and travelled nine months a year
When he left my mom in ’71 I didn't shed one tear
He was a man who married a teenage girl when he was 39
A man like that doesn't want a wife, he wants a concubine

He moved her to Boston, away from her friends and family
He isolated her, so in turn, she isolated me
She went to bars and house parties, and left her infant all alone
She joked that it was all right, ’cause in my crib she left the receiver of the phone

He was a shithead father, who created a vengeful wife
It's why I proudly say: When I was 14
And saw X and the Subhumans at the Whiskey
That was the night it may sound trite, but punk rock saved my life

At 35, when my father said he never wanted me
I remember that I didn't know him as well as his TV
Other weekends I spent in my granddad's Pontiac
At least he was proud to introduce me to his friends at the race track

He let me bet two-buck trifectas, and his friends became my teachers
I didn't know I was the only eight-year-old in the Santa Anita bleachers
Because a child doesn't know what normal is

In Beverly Hills, I grew up feeling like a tourist
'Cause my friends' parents were millionaires, my mom was a manicurist
She’d hang with the Factors and the Westside bourgeois
Since she’d go out five nights a week, she got me my own TV

I found her porn and sex toys and began to realize then
After she cooked dinner, she'd go out to fuck older wealthy men
I never had a babysitter, I had a latchkey
It’s so embarrassing: But she never threw me one birthday party

So I spent my nights going to every punk show I could find
My new home was Hollywood, around Selma and Vine
The Cathay, the Olympic, and the Vex
You see, punk rock was never just music to me, it was my life
My parents were just relatives, my family was always NOFX