Download Chris Thile’s Song of the Week from our February 29, 2020 show, “The Sully” (originally from September 14, 2019). The band: Chris Thile, Sarah Jarosz, Mike Elizondo, Eric Doob, Armand Hirsch, Gabriel Kahane, Jeremy Kittel.

—

Lyrics:

This is the Sully—

—As fine a ship as you

can sail from Le Havre France to New

York of a mild October

in the year of our lord

1832

Blessed be the quiet mind—

—such as wielded by a Sully

passenger named Samuel F.B

Morse the nearly famous artist

coming up for air post

years of work and study

Quiet be the weary mind

That hovers o’er the water—

—grateful to be homeward borne by true and perfect boredom

Hallowed be its name

‘Cause—

—weary be the troubled mind

That hovers o’er the water

With its lonely sons and daughter

On the shore ahead

And on the shore behind

So much unfinished business

But there ain’t a cure for distance

Save a long long time

Tick tick ticking several decks

below in steerage next to less-

considered travelers nothing

but their fevers running

wild from bed to bed

To bed

Quiet be their weary minds

Between the old and new world

No more to seek approval

From the loved ones wedded to the shore behind

Calling “y’all are gonna miss us,

Unless you find the cure for distance”

—and in that instant

There it is

A ceaseless current

A boundless grid

A prayer a potion

With form and function

To deliver us

To each other

From each other

Racing be the blessed mind

To a future long imagined

Bright with glory, fame and fortune

It had left for dead

On the shore behind

Jedidiah are you listening

Your son has found a cure for distance

And blessed be his quiet mind

That hears the roaring of an instant

God hath wrought the cure for distance

And that cure is mine