Freddie's Garden - Superpoppies

[VERSE 1] Freddie lives on the sixth floor walk-up Between the laundromat and the liquor store sign Got a coffee can of dirt and a cracked terracotta And he tends to it like it's a child of mine Marigolds pushing through the soot and the carbon Little tomatoes the size of a dream Nobody sees what Freddie is growing Nobody looks at what Freddie has seen [PRE-CHORUS] But when the city goes quiet at three in the morning And the neon bleeds red on the rain Freddie climbs up to his garden and breathes in And he don't feel the weight of the chain [CHORUS] Oh the superpoppies bloom where the concrete cries Pushing up through the asphalt to kiss the sky Superpoppies dancing in Freddie's eyes Growing wild in the dark, Lord Growing wild in the dark [VERSE 2] Mrs. Carver from 4B says boy you're crazy Hauling buckets of water up all them stairs But Freddie just smiles like a man with a secret Like a man who's found something nobody shares He's got sweet basil growing next to the cosmos Got a sunflower tall as his daddy stood And when the wind blows off the river at sundown Freddie swears that it smells like it should [PRE-CHORUS] And the children on the stoop they come up just to look now Little fingers reaching out for the green Something alive in the middle of all this Something tender that the city can't clean [CHORUS] Oh the superpoppies bloom where the concrete cries Pushing up through the asphalt to kiss the sky Superpoppies dancing in Freddie's eyes Growing wild in the dark, Lord Growing wild in the dark [PSYCHEDELIC BRIDGE] [swirling, elongated — feedback and organ swell] The roots go down through the building Down through the pipes and the wire Down through the bones of the borough Down through the mud and the fire Down to where something remembers What all this land used to be And Freddie floats up through his garden And Freddie floats out to the sea... [VERSE 3 (sparse — just acoustic and brushed snare)] Now Freddie's gone, they say he moved to Atlanta Left the planters on the roof in the rain But every spring something comes back without asking Little green fists pushing up through the pain The kids call them Freddie's, they don't know the real name They just know they come back every year Something he planted took root in the darkness Something he loved is still living up here [FINAL CHORUS (full band, slow and reverent)] Oh the superpoppies bloom where the concrete cries Pushing up through the asphalt to kiss the sky Superpoppies dancing in Freddie's eyes Growing wild in the dark, Lord Growing wild... Growing wild... Growing wild in the dark