Shotgun Shacks: A Row of Simple Dreams

Lyrics

[Intro]
They called you Shotgun.
A straight line from the front door to the back.
One clean thought, built of pine and need.

[Verse 1]
No hallways to hide a whisper in.
Just one room breathing into the next.
Kitchen heat, bedroom dark, living space small as a prayer.
I remember my mother's hands shelling beans at the table.
My father’s cough in the night, clear as if he were right beside me.
And always, the low hum of the Fulton Mill through the thin pine walls. The heartbeat.

[Chorus]
Twelve feet wide holds a whole world.
A straight line from first breath to last sigh.
Front porch talking, screen door sighing, back door open to the dirt-packed yard.
Just a row of simple dreams, stacked up tight.
On a street they named for cabbage.

[Verse 2]
The big wood stove was the sun we orbited.
Warming our hands, boiling the water for the tub.
Boiling the cabbage and the salt pork that hung in the air, that clung to our clothes.
That’s the smell that gave us our name.
Mrs. Gable next door, her window so close I could hear her turning pages in her bible.
Close enough to pass sorrow, or a cup of sugar, right through the sash.

[Chorus]
Twelve feet wide holds a whole world.
A straight line from first breath to last sigh.
Front porch talking, screen door sighing, back door open to the dirt-packed yard.
Just a row of simple dreams, stacked up tight.
On a street they named for cabbage.

[Bridge]
They said a bullet could fly clean through you, front to back.
An angry word could, too.
But a life gets snagged.
Gets caught on a nail in the wall holding a faded picture.
Gets caught on the iron skillet, on the creak of the floorboards where we danced.
A life gets tangled in the hope you whisper after the lamp is out.

[Outro]
The porch swing still moves in the evening air.
A straight line.
From their hands that built you...
to my memory of home.
Just a straight, simple line.