Live from Here Highlights

Download Chris Thile’s Song of the Week for December 14, 2019: “Letters”

The band: Chris Thile, Sarah Jarosz, Mike Elizondo, Eric Doob, Chris Eldridge, Alex Hargreaves, Brett Williams

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Lyrics:

TELEGRAPH OPERATORS (Chris)

Sleep my child and peace attend thee

All through the night

Guardian angels God will lend thee

All through the night

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping

Hill and vale in slumber steeping

I my loving vigil keeping

All through the night

Though I roam a minstrel lonely

All through the night

My true harp shall praise sing only

All through the night...

LINCOLN (Sarah)

My dear Sir and Madam

In the loss of your noble son

My affliction here

is scarcely less than your own

Our acquaintance began less than two years ago

Yet I can proudly say we knew each other well

And that the honors he labored for so laudably, and, in the sad end, so gallantly gave his life for, he meant for you, no less than for himself.

May God give you that consolation which is beyond all earthly power

Yours in our common affliction...

TELEGRAPH OPERATORS (Chris)

Love's young dream, alas, is over

Yet my strains of love shall hover

Near the presence of my lover

All through the night...

LINCOLN:

Dear Mrs. Ainesworth

I’ve been informed by an adjutant general

That your noble husband

Has died on the field of battle

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine

As sorrow threatens to blot out the sun

And blind you to what might yet be won

Let the memory of the brave man you loved remind you

Remind you

How much the prize of freedom is worth

How great the role is of death in rebirth

And such peace as there exists on this earth

Will find you find you find you

TELEGRAPH OPERATORS (Sarah)

Love to thee my thoughts are turning

All through the night

All for thee my heart is yearning

All through the night

LINCOLN (Chris)

Dear Fanny I am deeply saddened

To hear of the death your father

Sadder still to think of the pain

Your young heart is being made to suffer...

Dear George I too was a child when I lost my first parent

Dear Sir as you know I’m a parent whose buried his child

So I know what I say when I say that

As sorrow threatens to blot out the sun

And blinds you to what might yet be won

Let the memory of your father, husband, son remind you

Remind you

How much the prize of freedom is worth

How great the role is of death in rebirth

And such peace as there exists on this earth

Will find you find you find you

TELEGRAPH OPERATORS (Sarah, then Sarah and Chris):

Though sad fate our lives may sever

Parting will not last forever

There’s a hope that leaves me never

All through the night

Tom Papa reads an excerpt on grandparents from his book Your Dad Stole My Rake during our December 7, 2019 show. Find more about the book and Tom’s tour dates at tompapa.com.

This week: our Out In America correspondent Tom Papa heads to San Diego, where he visits an oceanfront bar, ponders ways to live a stress-free life, and chats with a business traveler from Queens named Gladys. Find Tom’s tour dates at tompapa.com.

Download Chris Thile’s Song of the Week for December 7, 2019: “How’s the Weather Where You Are?”

The band: Chris Thile, Aoife O’Donovan, Mike Elizondo, Chris Eldridge, Marcus Gilmore, Brittany Haas, Brett Williams

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Lyrics:

1.

Morse: A nibble!

Lincoln: A bite!

A reason to be thankful—

M: —for another sleepless night

But how best to set the hook?

L: How best to reel him in?

M: Hmm...what to send?

L: Hmm...what to send?

M + L: Not my name

L: He’ll know it

M: Rendering this another unclean slate

L: Another couple hours answering for these Divided States

M: And being the amplifier of this rift between Americans

Won’t help me make a friend

L: What to send?

M + L: Hmm...what to send?

L: What are the chances of this meeting? I won’t let it get away

M: Who else will dance me through the dead of night unto the break of day?

L: If I believed in God I’d ask him

M: Father, tell me

M + L: what to say

To make a friend out of this stranger on the wire

L: How’s the weather where you are?

2.

M: It’s hot as stock in Western Union

The air’s as thick as the brow of a grim patent judge

L: Is that your field of law?

M: Nice try. How’s the weather where YOU are?

L: Hot as the barrel of a freshly fired cannon

Air as thick as the skull of McDowell at Bull Run

And the smoke rising up to the sky

Over sons that were loved as much as mine was

M: I’m sorry for your loss.

L: I’m grateful for your ear

I hope I haven’t scared you off

M: Fellow stranger au contraire

Any night you feel like hopping

On this wire I’ll be here

Waiting to ask you how’s the weather where you are

L + M: How’s the weather where you are?

M: Cold as the sweat I woke up in an hour ago

L: Cold as each toe in each boot marching south through the snow

M: Exactly further yet from their hearths and our peace

Were I Abe I would bid each brave toe retreat*

L: What of the war for freedom lost?

M: I don’t believe it’s ours

I hope that doesn’t scare you off

L: Fellow stranger au contraire

Any night you feel like hopping

On this wire I’ll be here

Waiting to ask you how’s the weather where you are

‘Cause you can learn a lot about someone from asking how they feel about the weather where they are

Tom Papa spends some time in Chicago’s depressingly festive O’Hare airport, talks with a pair of Green Bay Packers fans, and commiserates with a gate agent who’s beset by frustrated travelers. (Originally from our December 8, 2018 broadcast.) Find Tom’s tour dates at tompapa.com.

Download Chris Thile’s Song of the Week for November 23, 2019: “You’re Just Doing Your Job.” The band: Chris Thile, Anaïs Mitchell, Jon Cowherd, Eric Doob, Alex Hargreaves, Armand Hirsch, Chris Morrissey.

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Lyrics:

Here’s a song

For the good folks who

We pay to look for bombs

In each other’s boots

Sure this line is long

Longer than my fuse

But you’re just doing your job

And what a job you’re doing

For the put-upon

Bearers of bad news

Now and forever caught here

Between us and our due

As platinums golds and silvers

Singing the Delta blues

“I can’t believe it’s not in your

Power to move me

To the seat I want

And just forgot to choose

I know you’re doing your job

But what a job to do”

And for the mom

Running stoically through

Each kid-unfriendly gauntlet

Doing the work of two

‘Til the boarding process

Drops her off next to

A childless man of business

Whose cares are few

Enough to voice his problems with

Her toddler on fumes

I heard her tell him off like

“Who the hell are you

To assess this job

That you could never do

Just put your headphones on”

Then away we flew

Then away we flew

Download "It's a Long Way Across the Wire," Chris Thile's Song of the Week from our November 16, 2019 broadcast. The band: Chris Thile, Aoife O'Donovan, Mike Elizondo, Eric Doob, Alex Hargreaves, Armand Hirsch, Gabriel Kahane.

Tom Papa reads an excerpt from his book ‘Your Dad Stole My Rake’ on the importance of strangers in our lives and points out a few new groups of strangers during our November 2, 2019 show. Find more about the book and Tom’s tour dates at tompapa.com.

Tom Papa heads to Portland, Oregon during Halloween week, tries to determine who’s wearing a costume and who’s just “Portland,” and sets off on a quest with a local wizard. Find Tom’s tour dates at tompapa.com.

Chris Thile’s Song of the Week for October 26, 2019: “Mutton and Strawberries.” The band: Chris Thile, Rachael Price, Mike Elizondo, Armand Hirsch, Gabriel Kahane, Jeremy Kittel, Joey Waronker.

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Lyrics:

What hath God wrought

Of strength unfelt

Gifts neglected

And love withheld

What hath God wrought (x3)

Lucretia left the world without a fight

Father left it clutching the handle of a knife

His memory never failing to give that knife a twist

All has led to this:

Mutton—

My children scattered like so many seeds

Separated from one another and from me

All my colleagues snickering at Samuel Morse the Scientist

All has led to this:

Mutton— (x2)

Dark magic or miracle

I don’t care

It’s wonderful

Listen, America’s about to bare her soul

And maybe her teeth as well

It’s a sound

To behold

Good or bad only someone else’s time will tell

—and strawberries

And a wire to connect the world

A wire to remind it

That nothing can become itself

‘Til something else defines it

One wire to connect the world

One wire to remind it

That nothing can become itself

‘Til something else defines it

Now a ghost of wire haunts this world

A ghost of wire drives it

Unto the need to know itself

And with that knowledge binds it

One ghost of wire haunts this world

One ghost of wire drives it

Unto the need to know itself

And with that knowledge binds it

‘Til we use it to connect the world

And let the world remind us

That none of us become ourselves

While someone else defines us