[Intro] [Low Drone + Distant Train Horn] [Verse 1] [Voice + Drone Only] Eighteen seventy-one, two railroads crossed in Jones Valley Alabama & Chattanooga running east to west South & North Alabama cutting through the rest The Elyton Land Company looked at that crossing And saw what crossings always produce A city [Verse 2] [Add Bass] Iron ore, coal, and limestone — all three in walking distance No other place in the Western Hemisphere holds that hand Sloss Furnaces rose like iron cathedrals Turning red dirt into the bones of a building land By nineteen twenty-five, largest steel producer in the South They called it Magic City 'cause it came up from the mouth Of nothing — a clearing in the woods in eighteen seventy A roaring powerhouse by nineteen hundred, thirty years from empty [Chorus] [Full Band — Atmospheric, Wide Open] Where the crossings meet Birmingham to Browns Ferry, Huntsville down the line Tullahoma testing hypersonic at the edge of time Where the crossings meet Railroad, river, rocket, road Every city in this corridor began where two paths showed Where the crossings meet [Verse 3] [Add Drums + Steel Guitar] Browns Ferry, eighteen thirteen — Cherokee ferry on the Tennessee Became the world's largest nuclear plant, three thousand nine-thirty MW Twenty percent of TVA, the corridor's energy spine The crossing where the river met the atom and the power line Huntsville, nineteen fifty — a hundred eighteen German rocket men Arrive at Redstone Arsenal, Saturn V begins Thirty-eight thousand acres, forty thousand souls a day The crossing where the moon landing started, people say [Chorus] [Building Higher] Where the crossings meet Tullahoma sixty-eight facilities deep Two hundred thirty-six thousand horsepower in the wind Testing things that haven't been invented yet again Where the crossings meet Four cities, four crossings, four different kinds of fire One corridor that builds the things the whole world will require Where the crossings meet [Bridge] [Drone + Spoken Word] Opathorlokan is the fifth crossing Where people meet The university that trains the workforce for the corridor Curtis Threadgill doesn't understand the penguins Or the space force Or the fish restaurant But he understands the teaching And the teaching is the part that matters [Final Chorus] [EVERYTHING — Full Electronic Build + Gospel Choir + Steel Guitar] Where the crossings meet A gas station and a Popeyes and a campus and a dream Cold chicken and carp fish and a register that gleams Where the crossings meet The city that burned twice built something both times Iron and ideas, both of them divine Where the crossings meet Where the crossings meet Where the crossings meet [Outro] [Train Horn Returns Over Fading Drone] Two railroads... Jones Valley... eighteen seventy-one... The crossing was waiting for all of them...
