Castleberry, English Ave, Vine City: The Westside Family

Lyrics

They say "Westside" now.
Like it's a new name for a new place.
A big, shiny name for the magazines.
But I know the family.
I know the given names.

English Avenue, you're the first cousin I call.
I see your shotgun houses standing in a line.
Tin roofs blinking in the July sun.
I remember John Wesley Dobbs lived here.
And at 528, the cast-iron horse head,
still waiting for a rein that disappeared in 1924.
You hold the heat, the quiet history.
The smell of hot asphalt and creosote from the tracks.

They call it Westside now. A single name for a constellation.
But I'm naming the cousins, one by one.
English Avenue, still breathing.
Vine City, holding the mayor's keys.
Castleberry Hill, with your brick-dust bones.
You are the family. The rest is just geography.

Vine City, you're the one who went to college.
Right there in the shadow of the AUC.
At dusk, I can still hear the marching band practice.
You gave us Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr.
From your front porch, he saw the whole city.
Felt the ground shake from the riot in 1906,
and decided to build it back, better.
Your roots run under the stadium now.

They call it Westside now. A single name for a constellation.
But I'm naming the cousins, one by one.
English Avenue, still breathing.
Vine City, holding the mayor's keys.
Castleberry Hill, with your brick-dust bones.
You are the family. The rest is just geography.

And Castleberry, you're the quiet uncle.
The artist who works with his hands.
Your 1920s warehouses breathe again.
Not with plows and cotton, but with light and canvas.
You remember the freight trains, same as they do.
You just found a different way to sing about it.
Three miles south of that goat-herd fence.

So let them have their "Westside."
Let them have their bourbon bars and their new steel bridges.
I'll be here, on the porch.
Whispering the true names.
English Avenue.
Vine City.
Castleberry.
The family.