I'm a town in Carolina, I'm a detour on a ride

For a phone call and a soda, I'm a blur from the driver's side

I'm the last gas for an hour, if you're going 25

I am Texaco and tobacco, I am dust you leave behind



I am peaches in September and corn from a roadside stall

I'm the language of the natives, I'm a cadence and a drawl

I'm the pines behind the graveyard and the cool beneath their shade

Where the boys have left their beer cans, I am weeds between the graves



My porches sag and lean with old black men and children

My sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them

I am a town



I'm a church beside the highway where the ditches never drain

I'm a Baptist like my daddy, Jesus knows my name

I am memory and stillness, I am lonely in old age

I am not your destination, I am clinging to my ways

I am a town



I'm a town in Carolina, I am billboards in the fields

I'm an old truck up on cinderblocks, missing all my wheels

I am Pabst Blue Ribbon, American, and "Southern Serves the South"

I am tucked behind a Jaycees sign on the rural route

I am a town

I am a town

I am a town

Southbound