“College Painters” - a song about entrepreneurs

I can still cut an edge in like nobody’s business

Story Pairing

I really did paint houses in college. Most of the songs I write are rooted in truth. That’s always been an important thing to me when it comes to writing. Even if it’s not my pwn personal truth, it’s inspired by a piece I picked up somewhere along the line.

So in college I was part of a program that was supposed to be teaching students how to become entrepreneurs. What it actually did was teach you how to pay off debt at the expense of living even a fraction as comfortable as the people in charge. The way they would do it is give you all of the supplies that you needed for the summer and access to a sherwin Williams account for all the paint. Then every time you made money, you gave the majority to the company for their costs (stated as the marketing materials, contracts, trainings etc), then pay your painters, and then you’d get what was left. Thing is you had to paint like 15 houses before you paid them back, labor was always going over what they assumed the budget would be, and paint was doing the same thing. Soo I left that summer with maybe $400 that I made after painting almost 20 houses. Idk if I’d call it a scam… but damn close. They dangled this cruise over your head as the big incentive. If you made them enough money they would take you and the crew on a cruise. I didn’t make the cruise.

What I did get was a fantastic schooling on how to survive when you are too proud to ask people for help and when you are too stubborn to give up. There were weeks were I’d walk into the Speedway at the corner of my street and hand them a dollar and change and ask them to put that on pump 2. I don’t know if you’ve ever put $1.50 in your gas tank, but it doesn’t get you too far.

Taco Bell was a saving grace early on. They would do .40c hard tacos on Tuesdays and I would load up, getting 10 at a time with the plan to eat 2/day. They also had this little game at the counter where you could drop in a coin and it falls through water and can land on these platforms that you can spin. If you land on the hardest one you’d get a free burrito I think. Anyway, I got really good at that game. There were many a nights where I won my supper at Taco Bell.

Halfway through the summer I ended up having to get another job to make ends meet and landed a kitchen job at a Chic-Fil-A. My ethics didn’t line up with some of their close-minded trainings, but I solved my food worries real quick, and for that I stuck it out. The amount of Chicken they would throw out was crazy, so I would toss the old sandwiches in a trash bag and when I took trash out at night I would throw that sandwich bag in my car before coming back in. My roommates at the time loved it too, we always had a few chicken sandwiches in the fridge.

That was a good summer with a lot of lessons, and we did end up painting a decent number of houses for some really cool people. We did paint a woman’s house purple and her husband did end up hating it and they wrote us a horrible review. And while no one got punched out, we did fall through a roof when one of the ladders slipped.

That’s enough reminiscing for today. I am going to go paint an animal picture this afternoon. No more houses for me if I can help it. And I have a fridge full of food right now. Life is good!


Song Structure

*Capo 3

Verse: G / C / D / G

Chorus: C / G / D / G


Voice Memos

College Painters - V1
Ben Gage
College Painters - V2
Ben Gage
College Painters - V3
Ben Gage
College Painters - Final
Ben Gage

Notebook Page

Feb 2025

Lyrics

Another hit born from money running low

Less a hit and more about whered it go

Summer time, college 2010

Had a ladder and a bucket and some brushes and a few of my friends

We’re the college painters, no experience

A lot cheaper than the guy that knows what hes doing if your pennies are in a pinch

Were the college painters, get your painting here

It’s just higher education, trading color for coin, to spend it on weed and beer

The first one, a ranch in peeling white

Said she wanted purple, we said alright

Got about halfway done when her husband got home

He jumped out and slammed the door, said what the hell is going on

We were taken a back, specially my big buddy stew

We were politely doing what we were politely asked to

So when he came a cussin and spitting in his face

Stew cocked back a purple hand, send that sucker into outer space

We’re the college painters, no experience

A lot cheaper than the guy that knows what hes doing if your pennies are in a pinch

Were the college painters, get your painting here

It’s just higher education, trading color for coin, to spend it on weed and beer

The second, an old split level home

With a nice enough guy living there all alone

He took a liking to our pal, pretty boy rob

Followed him around, singing his praises, saying boy you do a mighty fine job

So when Rob got paint on his car, we thought he’d be mad

We yelled, Stew get in the truck, wait this one out

Rob took the blame and offered to do chores for no pay

So we left him there and legend has it, he’s still choring today

We’re the college painters, no experience

A lot cheaper than the guy that knows what hes doing if your pennies are in a pinch

Were the college painters, get your painting here

It’s just higher education, trading color for coin, to spend it on weed and beer

The last one of the summer a big victorian

Roof so high our ladders couldn’t reach the trim

We turned to Charlie a first year engineer

Said don’t you worry fellas me and my calculations we got it from here

He found a push broom pole and a roll of discarded tape

5 cylinder blocks, said man this will work out great

Now the customer can yell straight to god what he’s feeling

Charlies contraption went south, and Charlie went right, through the ceiling

We’re the college painters, no experience

A lot cheaper than the guy that knows what hes doing if your pennies are in a pinch

Were the college painters, get your painting here

It’s just higher education, trading color for coin, to spend it on weed and beer

So if you’re looking to the partying youth, cause your damn near broke

Give it a second thought, get yourself a second quote


Thank you to my Patreon folks that help fund the time and equipment that goes into making these songs and publishing the process. If you believe in original music and would like to be a part of it, feel free to join us here.

Previous
Previous

“Dublin Again” - a song about Céad míle fáilte

Next
Next

“Looking Towards” - a song about a few things