Five Points — In Station

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
They called it Terminus first — the end of a line,
a stake in the red clay, 1837's sign.
No river chose this place, no harbor showed the way,
just iron and intention and the Georgia morning grey.

And now I'm where the iron veins all meet,
the zero at the center of the electric beat —
they dug me down in layers north-south under east-west,
the only ground where all four colors press.

[Chorus]
Five Points — the heart, the hub, the hold,
the one place every line has to cross;
the red and the gold run deep below,
the blue and the green at the surface, and nobody's lost.
(I am the zero. I am the start. Born from the end of the line.)

[Verse 2]
There's a face in my wall from 1901,
a terracotta lady the wrecking crew left undone —
they tore the old Eiseman down but they saved her grace,
and she watches every train from this concrete place.

From Terminus to Five Points, from the stake to the star,
the city that was born as an ending
runs through everything now — every line, every car.

[Chorus]
Five Points — the heart, the hub, the hold…

[Bridge — harmonica enters, the plaza opens up]
Up on the plaza it's the whole of the city at once:
the preacher and the student and the lost and the lunch —
they're cutting me open now to let the light back down,
open-heart surgery on the middle of town.

(roll… roll… roll…)
every line comes rolling home to the zero…

[Outro — chime, harmonica fading warm]
…the zero holds… the zero holds…
from Terminus, from the stake in the ground,
all roads roll home.