Murder Kroger

Lyrics

One seventeen AM.
The air thick with summer asphalt and Popeyes.

Before the trail was paved in gold,
before the condos scraped the sky,
there was a lot.
Just a sea of cracked gray under buzzing orange lights.
725 Ponce de Leon.
The old red oval promised low prices.
We'd run in for milk or beer after a show at the Masquerade.
Never lingered.
Keys already in your fist walking back to the car.
It was a joke we all told.
A landmark. A warning.

We called it Murder Kroger.
Just rolled off the tongue.
Part of the directions we'd give.
"Hang a right at Murder Kroger."
Nobody flinched.
It was just a name.
It was just our place.

Remember the shopping carts, abandoned by the rail line?
Rusting in the kudzu.
A monument to small errands.
By 2004, they were selling the t-shirts down at Sweet Auburn Market.
Black shirt, white letters.
A piece of civic pride we couldn't explain.
For the guards on the night shift, for the crew stocking shelves,
it wasn't a joke.
Just another Tuesday under the flickering lights.
Just the sound of glass breaking in the distance.

We called it Murder Kroger.
Just rolled off the tongue.
Part of the directions we'd give.
"Hang a right at Murder Kroger."
Nobody flinched.
It was just a name.
It was just our place.

Then the cranes came. 2021.
Scraped the asphalt clean.
Wiped the slate.
Now it's called 725 Ponce.
All glass and reclaimed wood.
Shiny bikes locked up where we used to park.
The ghost of the name is stronger than the new concrete.
It hangs in the air.
A story they don't put in the brochures.

They built a new Atlanta right on top of the old one.
But you can't redevelop a memory.
You can't rename a feeling.
Murder Kroger.
Forever.