Highland Land Co.: A Streetcar Dream

Lyrics

[Intro]
I see you, spread out on a new pine table.
You weren't even a place yet.
Just a promise, in black ink.
Eighteen Eighty-Eight.

[Verse 1]
Before you, there was just the land.
George Collier's farm, breathing slow.
Red clay sleeping under wild rye.
The whisper of wind over a field waiting for a name.
No grid, no lots, no cornerstones.
Just the curve of the earth
and the path of the creek in the low ground.

[Chorus]
But you were the dream that bent the light.
A streetcar dream, a grid of life.
Lines drawn straight and true for a future they could see.
Connecting a quiet hill to the city's iron heart.
The Highland Land Company's whisper
becoming a hum, a wire, a track, a key.

[Verse 2]
Then came the men with chains and transits.
Their boots sinking in that soft red earth.
They drove wooden stakes into Collier's pasture.
Each tap of the hammer a new heartbeat.
They drew a spine for you, a main artery.
Called it North Highland Avenue.
A name waiting for the houses to arrive.

[Chorus]
And you were the dream that bent the light.
A streetcar dream, a grid of life.
Lines drawn straight and true for a future they could see.
Connecting a quiet hill to the city's iron heart.
The Highland Land Company's whisper
becoming a hum, a wire, a track, a key.

[Bridge]
They laid the steel through empty fields.
A bet on a population that wasn't there.
The smell of creosote on the summer air.
A high whine on the rails, coming closer.
A promise of high ground, good health, a breeze.
A promise you could live here
and still be there.

[Outro]
The ink is dry now.
The plat map is folded away in a drawer.
But I walk its lines every day.
Your dream is breathing.
It's breathing all around me.