[Intro - bright fast freight-train boom-chicka, trebly electric, heavy slapback, the train rolling]
[Verse 1 - twenty-five years on, looking back]
[00:05.23]It has been the better part of twenty-five years now
[00:10.05]Since I sat down crying in a parking lot, a young man with no church
[00:16.53]And for the longest time I did not know what that shut door was
[00:22.71]The one those three men closed behind me
[00:25.87]But I have had twenty-five years to learn it, and now I know

[Chorus]
[00:32.58]That door they shut, it set me free
[00:38.10]They thought that they were shutting me out
[00:42.73]But the Lord had His own hand on it
[00:46.77]And the Lord was swinging it the other way
[00:51.87]The worst morning of my life
[00:54.47]Was the morning I was set free
[00:59.15]That door they shut, it set me free

[Verse 2 - the conscience]
[01:04.69]They sat me down to tell me that my conscience answered them
[01:09.66]That a man should not go reading where his elders had not led
[01:14.81]But I walked out of that office with a thing I did not walk in with
[01:20.16]I had a conscience, and it was mine
[01:22.78]And it answered to the Lord alone

[Verse 3 - the name on the roll]
[01:27.76]They told me I was nothing if I was not on their roll
[01:32.62]That a man cut from the membership was a man cut from the vine
[01:37.75]But I found my name was written somewhere they could not reach to scratch it out
[01:43.11]I was not a member, I was a son
[01:45.37]And no man takes a son off of the roll

[Chorus]
[01:49.55]That door they shut, it set me free
[01:55.15]They thought that they were shutting me out
[01:59.95]But the Lord had His own hand on it
[02:03.97]And the Lord was swinging it the other way
[02:09.17]The worst morning of my life
[02:11.79]Was the morning I was set free
[02:16.50]That door they shut, it set me free

[Bridge - freedom is real, and worth the cost]
[02:22.73]And freedom is a real thing, I have held it twenty-five years
[02:26.69]It cost me a church, it cost me tears, it cost me a place to belong
[02:32.12]And if the bill came back around tomorrow I would pay it all again
[02:36.50]Because the man I am, the free man
[02:41.08]Was born in that office, on that day

[Final Verse and Outro - the blessing, the train rolling out]
[02:51.30]So wherever those three men are now, I hope the Lord is good to them
[02:56.84]They meant to close a door on me, and a door is what they closed
[03:02.63]But it was the door of a cage, and I never knew the cage was there
[03:08.31]Till the morning that they shut it
[03:10.79]And I rolled on out, and I am rolling still
[03:16.60]That door they shut, it set me free