Commodore Stephen Decatur: A Name Unseen

Lyrics

[Intro]
A name. Just a name.
On a signpost in the Georgia rain.
Decatur.
Who were you?

[Verse 1]
Your world was salt and tar, the creak of a mast.
Tripoli Harbor, a shadow you cast.
February, 1804, a captured frigate's flame.
You burned the Philadelphia, and everyone knew your name.
But you never breathed this humid air.
You never walked this square.
Your battles were on water, so far from here.

[Chorus]
Commodore Stephen Decatur, you never saw this red clay.
Your name arrived three years after you had passed away.
A ghost word from a duel, carried on a southern breeze.
A hero's name, to name the trees.
An echo for a town you'd never see.

[Verse 2]
A crisp morning in Bladensburg, Maryland.
The smell of gunpowder on the damp land.
March twenty-second, 1820.
James Barron's pistol, and your time was through.
While here, the surveyors drove their stakes.
For goodness sakes.
They were clearing land for a courthouse, a future taking hold.
A story waiting to be told.

[Chorus]
Commodore Stephen Decatur, you never saw this red clay.
Your name arrived three years after you had passed away.
A ghost word from a duel, carried on a southern breeze.
A hero's name, to name the trees.
An echo for a town you'd never see.

[Bridge]
In Milledgeville, a legislative hall.
Eighteen-twenty-three, after your fall.
A scratch of quill pens, a vote is cast.
A legacy decided, built to last.
Was it just a headline, still fresh and new?
A patriot's honor, overdue?
A name plucked from the air, a sound they liked.
For a patch of earth, before the railroad spiked.

[Outro]
So we say your name at the coffee shop.
We say it at the bus stop.
Stephen Decatur.
The Commodore of these quiet streets.
Did you ever hear us call you?