The Roswell Riverside Festival

Lyrics

[Intro]
You can smell it from Azalea Drive.
Yeast and hops on the river breeze.
A sound that isn't traffic, a rhythm that isn't work.

[Verse 1]
The lawn at Riverside Park is a patchwork quilt today.
Coolers and folding chairs, blankets spread on the warm grass.
The white tents are up in a row, taps gleaming.
Every local brewer pouring something pale and gold.
Kids rolling down the gentle slope towards the water.
No one is in a hurry.
No one at all.

[Chorus]
This is the weekend we remember the river.
Turn our backs on the streets, on the brick and the asphalt.
And we face the water.
The Chattahoochee holds the stage.
The current keeps the time.

[Verse 2]
There's a band on a low stage, sound system pushing the vocals out over the slow-moving brown water.
A dobro slides high and clean.
Down at the bank, a canoe demo.
The quiet scrape of fiberglass on mud and gravel.
A paddle dips, a quiet lesson on the eddy line.
The two musics mix in the humid air.
The singer's story and the river's story.

[Chorus]
This is the weekend we remember the river.
Turn our backs on the streets, on the brick and the asphalt.
And we face the water.
The Chattahoochee holds the stage.
The current keeps the time.

[Bridge]
Funny thing is, nobody wrote this down.
There's no bronze plaque with a year on it.
No one gives a speech about how it all began.
It just... happens.
Like the pollen in April.
A habit the town picked up, a good one.
A conspiracy of blankets and good beer.

[Outro]
The sun drops behind the trees on the far bank.
The stage lights come on, coloring the undersides of the leaves.
Soon, the trucks will come.
The tents will come down.
The river goes back to being a boundary line.
But for now...
For now, it's the heart of the whole affair.