It seems to me that thi song is talking about him finally confronting his step father, after he finds him passed out in the car, assuming of course that the "lion" is his step father, by equating "king of the jungle" with "man of the house." he sees this and resolves to confront him and sneaks out to the car, the confrontation results in a deadlock, the details of which are unknown, and the police show up to try to resolve it. my guess is that he has a gun to his step fathers head or possibly in his mouth: "I crawl in shotgun and reach into his mouth." For several reasons, it seems likely that that is a confrontation worthy of police intervention, and because he talk about his palms getting sweaty and his arms getting tired, which would happen if you were holding a gun to someones head, and he talks about "I hold on for dear life, I hold on." After the police break apart the confrontation he changes the lyrics to "and we hold on for dear life, we hold on." which can be taken literally and figuratively, he could be hugging in reconsiliation, but more likely it means that the family holds together despite of the confrontation.
It seems to me that thi song is talking about him finally confronting his step father, after he finds him passed out in the car, assuming of course that the "lion" is his step father, by equating "king of the jungle" with "man of the house." he sees this and resolves to confront him and sneaks out to the car, the confrontation results in a deadlock, the details of which are unknown, and the police show up to try to resolve it. my guess is that he has a gun to his step fathers head or possibly in his mouth: "I crawl in shotgun and reach into his mouth." For several reasons, it seems likely that that is a confrontation worthy of police intervention, and because he talk about his palms getting sweaty and his arms getting tired, which would happen if you were holding a gun to someones head, and he talks about "I hold on for dear life, I hold on." After the police break apart the confrontation he changes the lyrics to "and we hold on for dear life, we hold on." which can be taken literally and figuratively, he could be hugging in reconsiliation, but more likely it means that the family holds together despite of the confrontation.