The Neighbors: Across the Tracks, Across the Divide

Lyrics

From this window…
The glass is cold.
Nineteen-ninety-something money polished this old brick.

To the east, the glass towers of Downtown.
Catching the last light.
They fill up the sky above the Gulch.
A city of schedules and commerce.
But my gaze always falls lower.
Down to the silver lines.
The iron spine that laid us all here.

And the same train rattles every window.
From my loft to the shotgun house.
Its whistle blows for Pittsburgh, for Mechanicsville.
A shared sound across the divide.
These tracks were meant to join, to haul, to build.
Now they just draw a line in the dust.

I think about the men who laid them.
Lived right there, in Mechanicsville.
Hands stained with grease and purpose.
I think about the families in Pittsburgh.
Who named their home for the soot on the sills.
A joke as hard and real as iron.
Breathing the same coal smoke that built these walls.

And the same train rattles every window.
From my loft to the shotgun house.
Its whistle blows for Pittsburgh, for Mechanicsville.
A shared sound across the divide.
These tracks were meant to join, to haul, to build.
Now they just draw a line in the dust.

And over there, Vine City.
Where a king walked on Sunset Avenue.
His dream echoing from the steps of Friendship Baptist.
Before the stadium's shadow grew so long.
Before the highways cut the streets to pieces.
History is close enough to touch.
If you could just reach across the rails.

We hear the same roar on game day.
A wave of noise that doesn't care about a zip code.
We see the same movie crews blocking the streets.
Painting our reality for a little while.
But then they leave.
And the line remains.
Drawn in steel, and time, and money.

Another train is coming.
I feel the floorboards hum.
A low rumble from somewhere else.
Heading somewhere else.
Just passing through the space between.