Chattahoochee River: The Western Edge

Lyrics

[Intro]
Leave the asphalt hum behind.
Yeah, just a ten-minute drive.
Find the western edge, where the city line dissolves.

[Verse 1]
Sunrise hits the lot at Morgan Falls Overlook Park.
The air is cool, still holding the dark.
We slide the kayaks off the roof, the plastic scrapes the ground.
Down at the dock, mist is burning off the water.
The sycamores peel, showing their white-bone branches.
A quiet splash, and the paddle dips in.
The current grabs hold.

[Chorus]
Chattahoochee, Chattahoochee!
River of the painted rocks.
This is our playground, our wild backyard.
Right where the concrete stops.
Yeah, the Chattahoochee, the Chattahoochee!
Cutting through the Georgia clay.
This is the pulse, the living water.
Washing the day away.

[Verse 2]
Up on the ridge, the Gold Branch Trail is beaten earth and roots.
A runner passes in a blur of neon shoes.
An osprey circles overhead, a hunter in the blue.
Down in the shoals, a man stands waist-deep, a patient silhouette.
Casting his line in the cold, clear shock of it.
A silver flash, a rainbow trout, impossible in this heat.
But the water flows cold from Buford Dam, a gift from up the way.

[Chorus]
Chattahoochee, Chattahoochee!
River of the painted rocks.
This is our playground, our wild backyard.
Right where the concrete stops.
Yeah, the Chattahoochee, the Chattahoochee!
Cutting through the Georgia clay.
This is the pulse, the living water.
Washing the day away.

[Bridge]
Remember the signature.
August fifteenth, nineteen seventy-eight.
A man named Jimmy Carter, before it was too late.
He drew a line around this water, said 'this, we will keep.'
For our children, and their children.
A promise buried deep.
So we can stand right here, today.
And feel it run.

[Outro]
The paddle pulls.
The current guides.
A Great Blue Heron stands and watches, unbothered on the side.
The sun is low.
We're heading home.
We're heading home.