The Porch Light: Goodnight, Castleberry Hill

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
The generator trucks are gone.
Rolled up their heavy black cables and their white screens.
Another day of pretending this street was somewhere else.
Chicago, nineteen-thirty-two. Or District Twelve.
The last of the second Friday crowd is heading for the train,
leaving their wine-stained paper cups by the gallery door.

[Chorus]
And one by one, the lights come on.
Not the big klieg lights.
Just the soft, square yellows in the high windows.
The porch light over the old loading dock door.
Goodnight, fake blood on the sidewalk.
Goodnight, lingering roar from the stadium.
Goodnight, Castleberry Hill.
It's just us now.

[Verse 2]
I can hear a single set of footsteps down on Bell Street.
The last call glow from Elliott Street Pub
paints the cobblestones.
The old brick breathes out the day's heat.
Still warm to the touch.
Each wall remembers the rumble of the box factory,
the weight of the goods that passed through these doors.

[Bridge]
And I wonder if the ghosts of the old workers see us.
See the books on the sills, the art on the walls.
Do they notice the stray cowboy boot someone forgot by the dumpster
after the shoot for 'Ozark'?
A little piece of a lie left behind in the truth of the night.

[Chorus]
And one by one, the lights come on.
In your high windows.
A hundred little stages, a hundred real lives.
The porch light over the loading dock door.
Goodnight, forgotten movie prop.
Goodnight, the day's last echo.
Goodnight, Castleberry Hill.
It's just us now.

[Outro]
Just the hum.
And the bricks.
And the quiet.
Goodnight.