01 Thirty-five years in the belly of birds Grease in his knuckles, grit in his words That airline took every shift he could work And only knew the first name stitched on his shirt But weekends out in the pole barn He'd fix the neighbors' wings and wheels Everybody said, "Man, hang your sign Them suits upstairs are gettin' a steal" But he was runnin' on empty down that flight line All he could see was the finish line
02 He's the mechanic Keep 'em flyin', rain or shine Every soul at thirty thousand Ridin' on his dotted line He's the mechanic He stays till the job's done right And the name you'll never know Is the reason you land tonight
03 He married my mama in eighty-seven No manual for a family half-sewn He'd seen what one loose rivet brings down So he tightened us up like his own I dodged a wrench or two in that pole barn Watched the needle pin the red He never wasted time on sayin' sorry He taught me to fix my bike instead He loved us the only way he knew how — twice as hard And when we hit turbulence, we never came apart
04 He got the sky from a man named Stan An engineer's mind and a pilot's hands He answered the call at Okinawa Came back when the war was won Turned them bombers into balsa wings And raised a crew of seven, one by one Saturday nights, them old war movies Flickerin' grainy black and white That was him lovin' his old man Tryin' to understand his fight
05 He grew up kneelin' but never knew The Man he was kneelin' to Then a shepherd came callin' in nineteen-ninety Sayin', "Brother, we could use your hands" To raise a roof for the Almighty On a patch of Wisconsin land He showed up swingin' his hammer Smashed his thumb and cussed the bench Thought the shepherd wasn't in the room That's when Jesus took the wrench He came to build a house for God Hummin' borrowed hymns But nail by nail and board by board God built a home in him
06 August 8th, 2020 His heart gave out mid-climb And the man who kept a thousand wings up Got carried home by one A second wind, a second chance His story wasn't done There's still broke things this side of Heaven And God still needs 'em to run
07 He's the mechanic Kept 'em flyin', rain or shine Every soul at thirty thousand Ridin' on his dotted line He spent his whole life fixin' Every broken thing he'd find Turns out the Real Mechanic Was fixin' him the whole time
08 The Mechanic ain't much of a preachin' man His workbench is bolted to wheels Still turns that wrench for his neighbors And never takes a dime Just runnin' a tab with God And askin' for nothin' on this side He buried the old him behind the hangar Found what he was born to do Now Jesus turns the wrench on him While he keeps 'em flyin' He never flew a day in his life But tell me he ain't earned his wings Keep 'em flyin', Dad Keep 'em flyin'
Words and music by Nathanael Joseph. © Nathanael Joseph Ende. All rights reserved. Quote a line with credit; please don't reprint the whole song.
