Odes to Atlanta, GA · Track 36 · middle
Atlanta Cultural Pillars
Atlanta cultural institutions — the High Museum of Art with its Renzo Piano expansion and Wieland Pavilion, Alliance Theater under the Coca-Cola Stage at the Woodruff, Atlanta Opera at Cobb Energy Centre, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall, Center for Civil and Human Rights at Pemberton Place, Hammonds House Museum African American art, Center for Puppetry Arts, MODA Museum of Design Atlanta, The Carter Center library and museum, Fox Theatre as restored landmark — keepers of art, performance, and memory
No audio yet — generation pending.
Lyrics
[Intro] Mighty Mo, you old beast of pipes and keys, restored in 1979, after the crowds saved you from the wrecking ball on Peachtree Street. [Verse 1] I lean close to your brass console, fingers tracing the stops, worn by hands like those of organists in 1929, when the Fox first lit up with Moorish towers. You hum low, a vibration in the chest, keeper of echoes from Symphony Hall, where Robert Shaw waved his baton in 1967, orchestras swelling like summer storms. [Chorus] Oh, Mighty Mo, you hold the city's breath, in your bellows, the notes of Atlanta's soul— Renzo Piano's glass at the High, flooding light on canvases in the Wieland Pavilion, 2005. You pipe the memories, don't you? From Hammonds House, where African American strokes paint forgotten faces, cool air at 68 degrees. [Verse 2] Address you now, as if you're the heart, pulsing under the Coca-Cola Stage at Woodruff, where Alliance actors tread boards at 7:30 PM, lines echoing like puppet strings pulled at the Center for Puppetry Arts, Kermit born from a coat and ping pong balls. You rumble with the opera's trill at Cobb Energy, chandeliers glowing over formal crowds. [Bridge] But whisper this, Mo— the scars in Pemberton Place, Center for Civil Rights, Martin Luther King's letter from 1963, handwritten, exhibits humming with sanitized air. And at The Carter Center, Jimmy's limousine sits quiet, a vehicle from 1977, library shelves bending under the weight of peace accords. [Verse 3] MODA's designs, sleek and modern, echo in your reeds, like Fox popcorn scents wafting through gold-leafed halls. You, restored landmark, tie them all— performance, art, memory—in one grand chord. [Outro] Mighty Mo, play on, through Atlanta's nights, your mighty sound the thread that binds.