The Next Act: Beyond the Backlot Lights

Lyrics

[Intro]
The big lights are down now.
The trucks have all rolled away.
Just the quiet hum, and the ghost outline of a chalk mark on the asphalt.
I'm just listening to you breathe, Castleberry.

[Verse 1]
They left a stain on the pavement by the Box Factory.
Said it was prop blood from the zombie show.
Some stories stick, you know.
Like the soot in the mortar, the memory of a thousand freight cars rumbling past in nineteen-oh-two.
Your bones are good.
Solid brick and heart pine.
We learned your lines, memorized all your scenes.

[Chorus]
But the backlot goes dark.
And the script pages blow down the street.
So what's the next act, now that the stars have gone home?
Who are you when you're not playing a part for someone else's camera?
What new lights are coming on?

[Verse 2]
I hear the new sounds in the morning.
The hiss of a welding torch on a steel beam.
The whine of a saw through fresh lumber.
They're putting up glass walls next to the old warehouse bricks.
Said they salvaged them from a mill somewhere down in Georgia.
Trying to buy a little piece of your soul, I guess.
New faces at Elliott Street, don't know about the art stroll yet.

[Chorus]
Because the backlot goes dark.
And the script pages blow down Bell Street.
So what's the next act, now that the stars have gone home?
Who are you when you're not playing a part for someone else's camera?
Tell me, what new lights are coming on?

[Bridge]
They're laying fiber optic cable under the cobblestones.
A million new conversations humming beneath our feet.
Will they carry your story?
Will the new blood learn the old names?
Or will they just see a pretty backdrop, a convenient location?
I'm asking you.
I'm still listening.

[Outro]
The sun sets behind a new crane.
Another window lights up in a wall that wasn't there last year.
The backlot is dark.
The stage is yours again.
Act Two.
Begin.