Lenox Square: The Marble Mall Majesty

Lyrics

Your floors were a cold white river.
Polished every morning with lemon oil.
Before the first footprint at ten a.m.

Ed Noble cut the ribbon in 1959.
Rich's was the anchor, solid and serene.
The escalators had brass handrails
that burned in the August heat.
Everything in its place.
Every sound contained.
A quiet kingdom built on Peachtree Road.

And two blocks down on East Paces Ferry,
the neon was just waiting for the dark.
Chaos was a promise.
Mako's was a threat.
But inside your walls, the air just hummed.
Cool marble majesty, safe from the coming night.

A Saturday at two p.m.
The smell of Cinnabon and waffle fries.
The valet line wrapped around the entrance.
The cold shock of a marble bench in the atrium.
I remember the plaque for the car hop service, discontinued in 1972.
A ghost of an older, quieter service.
While outside, the city got louder every year.

And two blocks down on East Paces Ferry,
the neon was just waiting for the dark.
Chaos was a promise.
Mako's was a threat.
But inside your walls, the air just hummed.
Cool marble majesty, safe from the coming night.

Then nine o'clock comes.
The steel gates roll down.
The last cart echoes from the perfume counter.
And the guards in the parking deck, they told me...
they could hear the bass bleed over from Tongue & Groove.
A muffled heartbeat in the concrete.
A world you locked out.

A quiet kingdom on Peachtree Road.
Your marble sleeping.
Sleeping through the roar.