Asphalt Psalm

[Verse 1]
The last G-Wagon's ghost is gone, the key fob's cold inside the lockbox.
Three AM, you trace the salt-stains on my dusty dashboard, connect dots.
My palm still hot from the grip of a cheap wheel after their Alcantara,
This is the part of the night where the truth gets clearer.
We take the long way past the antebellum bones on Abercorn Street,
Past the wrought-iron gates that guard a silence, a curated defeat.
You ask me why I drive these squares like a rosary, a penance for the day,
I'm just trying to find a load-bearing wall in all this beautiful decay.

[Chorus]
You just watch the Spanish moss hang down.
Breathe in the low tide air of this town.
This is how you don't drown.

[Verse 2]
Remember that reception at the Telfair? All that starched-collar talk?
They saw the valet stub stickin' out my pocket, my whole future felt mocked.
I gave 'em fake book titles, talked about foundations, plinths, and flying buttresses,
Anything to gild the rot, to hide the rust under the surfaces.
She asked me, "What's the five-year plan?" I pointed at a crack in the plaster,
Said, "I'm renovating that," hopin' the bourbon would make my words move faster.
You laughed and pulled me out the door before my whole façade could fall apart,
Just another perfect ruin with a barely-beating heart.

[Chorus]
You just watch the Spanish moss hang down.
Breathe in the low tide air of this town.
This is how you don't drown.

[Bridge]
Every cobblestone's a pixel in a map of my mistakes.
Every tourist's flashbulb is a flash of lightning for God's sakes.
But you're still here, shotgun, quiet, reading all the scaffold marks,
Tracing my blueprints in the dark.

[Outro]
Yeah. Just keep tracing.
We're almost home.