July 24, 2012: The Vote's Dawn

Lyrics

[Intro]
July twenty-fourth.
The air so thick you could hold it in your hands.
Georgia humidity, a promise and a weight.
All the talking is done.

[Verse 1]
I see you, little sign, in the St. Augustine grass.
Faded blue on white, baked by the sun for weeks.
"YES for Brookhaven."
A simple wish planted by the curb.
Remember the meetings?
The coffee in styrofoam cups at the community center.
The maps spread out on folding tables.
Years of drawing lines, making calls,
All coming down to a black pen
in a quiet booth.

[Chorus]
And we drew a circle with a million different hands.
In the cool dark of the voting booth, we whispered a new name.
Not with a shout, but a checkmark.
Not with a thunder, but a folded piece of paper.
July twenty-fourth, twenty-twelve.
We woke up a neighborhood, and went to bed a city.

[Verse 2]
The sun bleeds out over Peachtree.
Headlights streaming home.
Everyone is waiting.
The cicadas start their nightly drone,
the only news we have for hours.
Phones glow in the dark.
A refresh, and then another.
Did they count the ballots from the school gym?
From the church basement?
Every quiet house holds its breath.

[Chorus]
And we drew a circle with a million different hands.
In the cool dark of the voting booth, we whispered a new name.
Not with a shout, but a checkmark.
Not with a thunder, but a folded piece of paper.
July twenty-fourth, twenty-twelve.
We woke up a neighborhood, and went to bed a city.

[Bridge]
A hundred years, they called us by that name.
Borrowed from a country club, a whisper on the wind.
An invisible city, hiding in plain sight.
Tonight, we give the ghost a body.
The largest in DeKalb, born in a single day.
From a feeling to a fact.

[Chorus]
And we drew a circle with a million different hands!
In the cool dark of the voting booth, we shouted a new name!
Not with a shout, but a checkmark!
Not with a thunder, but a folded piece of paper!
July twenty-fourth, twenty-twelve!
We woke up a neighborhood, and went to bed a city!

[Outro]
The signs are still there in the morning.
The blue and white.
But the dew on them is different.
It's the first morning.