Dante's Down the Hatch: The Boat

Lyrics

[Intro]
Well now.
You step off Peachtree Road...
and the pavement turns to plank wood.

[Verse 1]
The air gets thick, smells of brass and old rope.
A main mast rises to a ceiling that isn't the sky.
Dante Stephensen, he's at the door, see?
Got that captain's hat on.
He cut up an eighteen-foot fishing boat just to build this dream.
A ship that never once saw the sea.

[Chorus]
Down the hatch we go, my friend.
Where the fondue pot is bubbling.
And the Atlanta Jazz Band swings a tune for the sharks in the tank.
Yeah, the gators in the moat don't mind the noise.
This is Dante's boat, the strangest harbor in the South.

[Verse 2]
You spear your bread, you dip it in the Gruyère.
Watch the blacktip reef shark make a slow, silent pass.
George Coonce on the trombone, making that slide talk.
You could bring a date, you could bring your wife.
Bored or not, Dante said, you bring her here.

[Chorus]
Down the hatch we go, my friend.
Where the chocolate pot is steaming.
And the Atlanta Jazz Band swings a tune for the sharks in the tank.
Yeah, the gators in the moat don't mind the noise.
This is Dante's boat, the strangest harbor in the South.

[Bridge]
From Underground in nineteen-seventy...
to the last call in two-thousand-thirteen.
Forty-three years.
He said we were family.
First dates and anniversaries, all logged in this wooden hull.
A whole life lived below the water line.

[Outro]
The lights go out on the tanks.
The water in the moat goes still.
The fondue's gone cold.
Goodnight, Captain.