Royal Peacock Club: Neon Pulse

Lyrics

Auburn Avenue, after dark.
The day's heat gives way.
And up there, on the brick face at one-eighty-six...
A bird made of glass and gas begins to glow.
Blue, green, electric.
A promise.

It wasn't always a peacock.
Nineteen thirty-seven, it was a Top Hat.
Just a name.
Then 'fifty-one came.
A man named Herman J. Russell, he bought the bricks, bought the floor.
He gave it a proud name.
Said, "This is a palace, for us."
A place to be royal, even for a night.

That's the Royal Peacock.
The neon pulse on the richest street.
Where the saxophone cried freedom
and the bass line was the beat of our own heart.
Yeah, the Royal Peacock.
Just listen. You can still hear it.

The floorboards remember.
They remember the slide and the stomp of James Brown.
He left his soul's sweat on that wood. A kind of holy water.
They remember Aretha, making the house piano sound like a cathedral organ.
Remember B.B. King, making Lucille weep for everyone's sins and sorrows.
The Chitlin' Circuit found its throne right here.

That's the Royal Peacock.
The neon pulse on the richest street.
Where the saxophone cried freedom
and the bass line was the beat of our own heart.
Yeah, the Royal Peacock.
Just listen. You can still hear it.

Funny thing.
Upstairs, a balcony.
For eyes that had to watch from a distance.
That was a rule of the world outside, seeping in through the mortar.
A reminder of the concrete and the steel they were planning, just down the way.
But down here... on this floor... under this light...
The only royalty that mattered
was the Queen of Soul on the stage.

The sign still hums.
A low electric prayer.
Blue. Green.
One-eighty-six Auburn.
The pulse...
...never really stops.