Forty Watt Nights

Lyrics

[Intro]

You, old 40 Watt bulb, hanging there in the loft above the gyro shop,
285 West Washington Street, April 5, 1980.

[Verse 1]
Michael Stipe, twenty years old, steps up under your dim glow,
voice a cryptic murmur, January 4, 1960, born to this weird little town.
Peter Buck, twenty-three, picks at his Telecaster,
December 6, 1956, strings shivering like nervous hands.
The air thick with stale beer and cigarette smoke,
eighty-five degrees, no air conditioning, sweat on the sticky floors.

[Chorus]
Forty Watt nights, you light the freaks and the failures,
Bill Berry on drums, July 31, 1958, beats echoing off the low ceiling.
Mike Mills, bass thumping, December 17, 1958, home that smells like beer and dreams.
Pylon and B-52s before you, college town incubator,
Oconee Street steeple watching over the midnight sets.

[Verse 2]
In the abandoned sanctuary, 304 Oconee Street,
early summer 1981, dusk at seventy-five degrees,
scent of blooming magnolias drifting through broken windows.
They rehearse with a Teac 4-track recorder,
raw demos in the haze, old Ford Econoline van waiting outside.
PBR cans litter the floor, gyro sandwiches wrapped in foil,
tzatziki dripping after the show.

[Bridge]

You, single bulb, casting long shadows over the stage,
named for your forty watts, the only light in this tiny space.
Athens lets them be weird, safe to fail under your flicker.

[Verse 3]
Red & Black review calls it jangly, mysterious,
local bookers unnamed, bartenders forgotten,
students and townies, the core without names,
packed bodies in the furnace heat.

[Chorus]
Forty Watt nights, you light the freaks and the failures,
Bill Berry on drums, July 31, 1958, beats echoing off the low ceiling.
Mike Mills, bass thumping, December 17, 1958, home that smells like beer and dreams.
Pylon and B-52s before you, college town incubator,
Oconee Street steeple watching over the midnight sets.

[Outro]

You hang there still, bulb, in the memory of those nights,
Athens, incubator of sound, under your glow.