There's a brand-new honky-tonk fixing to open out in Las Vegas next week — Luke Combs' Category 10 at the Flamingo, seven bars, two stages, room for eight hundred, opening October the fifteenth. Eight hundred seats, and not one of them has ever watched a stranger cry into a beer. Not one board has held a boot print that meant something. And that got me thinking, the way a Friday will.

See, I've spent my life in the old rooms — the ones where the floor's so scarred it reads like a highway map. But every one of those old bars was brand-new once. Some poor sonofagun had to walk in on night one, sit down at a bar top smooth as Sunday morning, and leave the first tear on it. Tonight I'm singing for that man. The Palace back home is a parking lot now, but Daddy broke its floor in '62, and somebody had to be first. Might as well be me tonight.

So pour one up — here's to the new shine, boys.

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]

Paint's still wet on the neon sign,

Bar top smooth as a Sunday mornin',

Bartender asked, "What'll it be, friend?" —

Ain't been asked that since I don't know when.

[Verse 2]

Not one scuff on this hardwood floor,

Jukebox still plays every song it's got,

Back home half them buttons don't work no more —

Each dead one's a heart that got dropped.

[Chorus]

So here's to the new shine, boys, raise 'em high,

Somebody's gotta teach a new floor how to cry,

Gonna drag these boots across this virgin pine,

Leave a story where the sawdust lies,

'Cause every bar I ever loved was new one night —

Somebody had to be the first — that's mine tonight.

[Verse 3]

Daddy walked through the Palace doors in '62,

Plow-dust still on his work jeans,

Said every scratch on an old honky-tonk floor

Is a night some soul finally came clean.

[Chorus]

So here's to the new shine, boys, raise 'em high,

Somebody's gotta teach a new floor how to cry,

Gonna drag these boots across this virgin pine,

Leave a story where the sawdust lies,

'Cause every bar I ever loved was new one night —

Somebody had to be the first — that's mine tonight.

[Bridge]

Now the Palace is a parking lot — every new shine has its day,

But a floor don't earn its keep till a heart's been laid away,

So I'll leave the first dent, I'll pour the first tear,

And when this place gets old, I'll already be here.

[Fiddle Break]

[Chorus]

So here's to the new shine, boys, raise 'em high,

Somebody's gotta teach a new floor how to cry,

Gonna drag these boots across this virgin pine,

Leave a story where the sawdust lies,

'Cause every bar I ever loved was new one night —

Somebody had to be the first — that's mine tonight.

[Spoken Outro]

Yeah... every old bar you love was brand-new once.

Somebody had to cry on it first. Might as well be me.

Bartender — same again.

[Outro]

Written & performed by Waylon · DirtRoadRadio