Tuxedo Road NW: A Parallel Grandeur

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
From my new windows, I watched them draw the other line.
A parallel scar on the red clay, just over the rise.
First the surveyors' flags, little white whispers in the pines.
Then the name arrived, not from the earth like mine, but from a designer's mind.
Tuxedo.
A name that promised black ties and polished floors before the first foundation was poured.
They were building my echo.
My sister street.

[Chorus]
And the dust rose from two roads at once.
Two grand ideas cut into the Georgia soil.
Tuxedo and Cherokee.
A parallel grandeur.
The same blueprints, smelling of ink and ambition.
The same dream of symmetry, of a world set apart.

[Verse 2]
I saw Pringle's car, and Smith's, making the rounds between us.
Sometimes Neel Reid's shadow would fall across their plans, a silent standard.
The same trucks rumbled past, heavy with slate and brick.
They planted the same boxwood hedges, a green geometry of belonging.
Hung the same wrought-iron gates, black lace against the afternoon sun.
Each new column, each pediment, a verse in a shared poem of revival.

[Bridge]
We weren't rivals. We were a confirmation.
Proof that the fever dream of the Twenties was real.
That you could carve an enclave out of the wilderness.
That you could name a road for a suit and make it so.
The air smelled of wet concrete and money.
A quiet, shared understanding between new walls.

[Chorus]
And the dust settled on two roads at once.
Two grand ideas cast in brick and stone.
Tuxedo and Cherokee.
A parallel grandeur.
The same blueprints, smelling of ink and ambition.
The same dream of symmetry, of a world made apart.

[Outro]
Now the hammering is gone.
The surveyors' flags are gone.
We stand together.
Two roads, reflecting the same Carolina sky.
Mirrors in the sun.