Buttermilk Bottom: The Erased Neighborhood

Lyrics

[Intro]
Buttermilk Bottom.
They say the name came from the rain.
When the water pooled in the low ground, thick and white like a churn.
A name from the earth itself.

[Verse 1]
Before the papers called it a slum, it was just home.
Wood-frame houses leaning into each other.
A screen door slapping shut in August.
The smell of somebody’s greens on the wind.
We were east of downtown, but it felt like the center of the world.
A geography of porches and gardens, written in that soft, giving mud.

[Chorus]
Then came the men with the blueprints.
The sound of progress is a grinding gear.
They called it renewal.
They called it clearance.
But it was an erasure.
They scraped the bottom clean.
Poured concrete over the buttermilk memory.

[Verse 2]
The records don't keep the names of the children who made castles in that mud.
Or the sound of the choir from the church with no sign now.
Just a line in a city plan, a polygon of blight.
They took the photos in black and white to make it look sadder than it was.
To make the tearing down feel like a kindness.

[Chorus]
Here come the men with the blueprints.
The sound of progress is a diesel engine's groan.
They called it renewal.
They called it clearance.
It was an erasure.
They scraped the bottom clean.
Poured concrete over the buttermilk soul.

[Bridge]
They needed the land for a stadium.
For the future.
For the cars.
For a city that was too busy to hate, but not too busy to forget.
You can't build a new world without digging up the old one.
You just have to make sure no one is listening when the roots scream.

[Outro]
Now I stand on the asphalt.
I close my eyes.
I try to feel the low ground under my feet.
The dampness.
The memory of the churn.
Buttermilk Bottom.
A name from the earth itself.
And now, just a ghost in the air.