The Noise of Our Lives

[Intro] Hear that road? That’s our shadow passing by East Riverside Waco You can’t erase a neighborhood by driving through it [Verse 1] I grew up where the southbound line hums Like a long metal promise past the yard Brick homes, chain-link, porch talk Screen doors, fish plates, baby laughter, church hats Black folks held this corner down Through years that looked away on purpose Not a boot on the neck every second Just the slow ache of being passed over Broken sidewalks, late repairs, empty lots But the gardens still came up in spring Grandmama’s collards, uncle’s grill smoke Kids racing bikes where the gravel cut close [Pre-Chorus] We learned to make a home Out of what was left We learned to keep a name When the city forgot [Chorus] Southbound Waco, we still here Southbound Waco, we still here All that love, all that work Built this ground year after year Southbound Waco, we still here Southbound Waco, we still here Hear our people, hear our pride We been shining from the inside [Verse 2] History sits in the front rooms here In quilts, in recipes, in old front steps In the way Auntie tells the children Who owned what, who crossed that line Who sang loud when the bills got mean Who made joy out of a hard month Juke joints, marches, Sunday feasts Hair braids, radios, river talk The census might miss the heartbeat But the block remembers every face Every coach, every deacon, every seamstress Every man who fixed the leak with a wrench Every woman who stretched one pot Into a table full of grace [Pre-Chorus] We learned to make a home Out of what was left We learned to keep a name When the city forgot [Chorus] Southbound Waco, we still here Southbound Waco, we still here All that love, all that work Built this ground year after year Southbound Waco, we still here Southbound Waco, we still here Hear our people, hear our pride We been shining from the inside [Bridge - Spoken Word] They call it progress when the rent climbs higher When the paint gets fresh and the old porch goes silent When somebody else gets to sell our memory back to us At a price we can’t pay But we know what was planted here We know whose hands dug the dirt Who buried cousins, who raised daughters Who kept the block alive when the map went blank So if you come with your plans and your pretty names Understand this first: We are not a blank space We are not your before picture We are the room, the recipe, the rhythm We are the people who stayed When staying cost something [Verse 3] Now the kids still laugh by the highway fence While the trucks roll past like thunder on cue And I tell them, baby, this place is not small It is layered like a song with a long memory From church pews to barbershop chairs From reunion cookouts to school field days From all the hurt that taught us caution To all the love that taught us how to grow If they want to buy what we became They better learn what it took to build it Because our roots don’t bend for a sale sign And our names don’t fade for a new coat of paint [Outro] So let them hear the road Let them hear the homes Let them hear the hands that made this truth Northeast Waco, southbound line We are the proof We are the proof Southbound Waco, we still here