MARTA & BeltLine: Rhythms of the East

Lyrics

[Intro]
Listen.
Just stand here with me, on the bridge.
There are two heartbeats now.

[Verse 1]
The first one is older.
Came in a cold December, seventy-nine.
Up there, on the concrete platform.
The Edgewood-Candler Park station.
It announces itself with a long, metallic scream.
That's the curve in the track, you know.
A signature sound.
Then the whoosh, the pneumatic sigh of the H-Series doors.
A rhythm of departure and arrival, all day long.
Iron on iron.

[Chorus]
This is the new pulse of the eastside.
A song sung in two parts.
The heavy rail on the high line,
and the light feet on the path below.
The train’s lonely whistle, the trail’s easy laughter.
MARTA and BeltLine.
The rhythms that carry us home.

[Verse 2]
The other heartbeat is newer.
Woke up around October, twenty-twelve.
Down here, where the ghost rails used to sleep in the weeds.
They paved over the silence.
And now… it breathes.
The whir of a skateboard wheel on smooth asphalt.
The bright brass ring of a bicycle bell, saying *on your left*.
Voices in Spanish, in English.
The rhythm of sneakers and dog tags and first dates.
A human current.

[Chorus]
This is the new pulse of the eastside.
A song sung in two parts.
The heavy rail on the high line,
and the light feet on the path below.
The train’s lonely whistle, the trail’s easy laughter.
MARTA and BeltLine.
The rhythms that carry us home.

[Bridge]
I remember when this was just a quiet cut-through.
A dirt path beside rusting steel.
Only the sound of wind in the kudzu.
Now the screech of the train is an answer.
And the chatter from the trail is a question.
They talk to each other all day.

[Outro]
Hear it?
One sound going out.
One sound staying here.
The two heartbeats.
Our heartbeats.