Edgewood Avenue: Our Main Street Soul

Lyrics

Edgewood Avenue...
I'm just driving you end to end again.
From Moreland to the big-box glow.

You remember the iron song, don't you?
The Georgia Railway & Electric Co. laying down your spine.
Joel Hurt’s dream of a suburb, measured out in walking distance.
A quarter-mile from the front porch to the clanging bell.
Nineteen-oh-nine... you were your own town then.
Your own main street.
Before the papers were signed and you became just another city vein.

Oh, Edgewood Avenue, you hold it all.
The ghost of the rail, the fresh-poured wall.
Every layer, every name.
The constant in the changing game.
Our main street soul.

Then the tracks went quiet.
The wires came down.
Just the hum of cicadas in the afternoon.
Honeysuckle creeping over fences where the general store used to be.
And the signs started to fade on the brick...
Whispers of bakeries and hardware, painted when the paint was cheap and the future was sure.

Oh, Edgewood Avenue, you hold it all.
The ghost of the rail, the fresh-poured wall.
Every layer, every name.
The constant in the changing game.
Our main street soul.

And then two-thousand-and-five.
The earthmovers came.
That sharp, metallic smell on the air.
A different kind of light...
Not the warm yellow from a bungalow window, but the hard white glare from the Lowe's parking lot.
The endless river of cars turning in for paper towels and plywood.
A new heart, beating a much faster time.

I pass a ghost sign for bread... on my way to Target.
I see the old rooflines behind the new facades.
You don't forget a thing, do you?
You just... wear it all at once.
Yeah. You wear it all.