Decatur: Our Own City, Dammit

Lyrics

"So, you live in Atlanta?"
That's the question I always get.
A simple map-blurring, a casual assumption.
And I just smile.

You're driving east on Ponce de Leon, you feel a little shift.
The street signs change their font.
You cross an invisible line, but it’s real.
Welcome to the City of Decatur.
It’s not just a welcome mat.
It’s a declaration.
Our own police cars, our own fire trucks.
Our own quiet pride.

Don't call us a neighborhood.
Don't call us a suburb with a cute downtown.
We are the seat of DeKalb County.
We have our own charter, signed in ink.
This square, this courthouse, this is our own damn city.
And that matters here.

December Tenth, eighteen twenty-three.
A name on a piece of paper.
Drawn on a map before the railroad even dreamed of this ridge.
Named for a Commodore, Stephen Decatur, a man of the sea.
A landlocked town with an ocean-sized heart.
We were here, with our own plan.

Don't call us a neighborhood.
Don't call us a suburb with a cute downtown.
We are the seat of DeKalb County.
We have our own charter, signed in ink.
This square, this courthouse, this is our own damn city.
And that matters here.

It’s not some fight against the shadow next door.
It's a quiet insistence.
It's knowing the names on the city council.
It's the feeling under the old courthouse columns.
This is our home.
Not just a pin on a bigger map.
Our own government, our own story.

So I'll say it again.
I live in Decatur.
Our own city.
Dammit.
Our own city.