Odes to Atlanta — Festival Edition · Track 2 · middle

Sports

A pantheon mosaic of Atlanta sports — Falcons red and black, Braves tomahawk blue, Hawks gold and red, Atlanta United five stripes, Dream WNBA navy, the 1996 Olympic torch, Georgia Bulldogs red, Georgia Tech yellow, the Atlanta Crackers minor-league era, Murph at the Varsity tailgate. ART DIRECTIVE for the cover image: include the names 'Falcons', 'Braves', 'Hawks', 'ATL UTD', 'Dream', 'Bulldogs', 'GT', '1996' as legible scene-text — woven into jerseys, scoreboards, banners, ticket stubs, marquees in the artwork. Spelled exactly. Not a separate banner — they are part of the depicted scene.

Lyrics

You can still hear it, if you listen.
Past the noise of the Connector.
A ghost of a wooden grandstand.
Ponce de Leon Park, 1965.
The last echo of the Atlanta Crackers.

Then the sound changes.
The calendar page turns. April 8, 1974.
Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
A Tuesday night. Humid.
And Henry Louis Aaron at the plate.
And for a second, the whole city holds its breath.
715.
Flying over the fence, into the dark.
A new sound for a new city.

This is the red and black heart beating.
The five stripes chanting in the rain.
The tomahawk blue under Friday night lights.
The gold and red flash of a highlight film.
This is the navy of a Dream deferred no more.
This is Atlanta.
This is our name on the jersey.

I remember the squeak of sneakers at the Omni.
Dominique Wilkins taking flight.
A blur of gold, a human highlight.
I remember Sundays, a sea of red.
Arthur Blank dancing in the owner's box.
That feeling when the Dirty Birds rise up.
It's more than a game.
It's the city's pulse, right there on the fifty-yard line.

This is the red and black heart beating.
The five stripes chanting in the rain.
The tomahawk blue under Friday night lights.
The gold and red flash of a highlight film.
This is the navy of a Dream deferred no more.
This is Atlanta.
This is our name on the jersey.

Then came the world. 1996.
The torch held high, the summer air thick with steam and hope.
And then the King came. Josef Martinez. 2018.
A whole new song for the stands to sing. ATL UTD.
From Georgia Tech yellow to Bulldogs red on a Saturday,
the sound rolls down I-85.
We wear the colors.
We know the chants by heart.

Murph at the Varsity tailgate, grilling.
The steam from a hot dog.
The roar from Athens, a promise on the wind.
The faces in the crowd you never see in the paper.
We were there.
We are here.