Cabbagetown's Weave: Neighbors on the Line

Lyrics

Just across the tracks.
Just on the other side of the noise.
I can feel your pulse.

They called it Factory Town, back in eighteen eighty-one.
Jacob Elsas drew the lines, for the thread that had to run.
From the hills of Appalachia, a different kind of green,
To the shotgun houses standing, in rows you've always seen.
The air was thick with cotton dust, a ghost on every sill,
And life was measured by the shift, and the whistle from the mill.

Oh, the weave of Cabbagetown, a tangled, sturdy thread.
The warp and weft of promises, the living and the dead.
And now a new line's drawn in steel, right where the old one lay,
Connecting your world to my porch, a half a mile away.

The big mill bell went quiet, in nineteen seventy-seven.
Left a silence on Tye Street, a different kind of heaven... or hell.
The looms all stopped their chatter, the spindles ceased their spin.
And a quiet settled over, let a different life begin.
The cabbages in the front yards, they gave you your stubborn name.
A patch of green, a will to grow, a slow and patient flame.

Oh, the weave of Cabbagetown, a tangled, sturdy thread.
The warp and weft of promises, the living and the dead.
And now a new line's drawn in steel, right where the old one lay,
Connecting your world to my porch, a half a mile away.

Through the Krog Street Tunnel, the colors bleed and run.
A different kind of shuttle, beneath the morning sun.
The ghost of Hurt's old trolley, the spark along the wire,
Is now the sound of laughter, a cyclist's spinning tire.
A concrete river flowing, where freight cars used to rust.
Connecting brick and gingerbread, in common city dust.

From the mill's tall, silent smokestack,
To the porch lights on Elizabeth Street.
I can hear your echo.
The weave holds.
It holds.