Here and Heaven

Here and Heaven

Music video by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile performing Here and Heaven, featuring Aoife O’Donovan, Goat Rodeo Sessions.

Lyrics

Here and Heaven

With a hammer and nails and a fear of failure we are building a shed
Between here and heaven between the wait and the wedding for as long as we both shall be dead
To the world beyond the boys and the girls trying to keep us calm
We can practice our lines 'til we're deaf and blind to ourselves to each other
Where it's fall not winter spring not summer cool not cold
And it's warm not hot have we all forgotten that we're getting old

With an arrow and bow and some seeds left to sow we are staking our claim
On ground so fertile we forget who we've hurt along the way and reach out
For a strange hand to hold someone strong but not bold enough to tear down the wall
'Cause we aint lost enough to find the stars aren't crossed why align them why fall hard not soft
Into fall not winter spring not summer cool not cold
Where it's warm not hot have we all forgotten that we're getting old

And it's fall not winter spring not summer cool not cold
And it's warm not hot has everyone forgotten that we're getting old
And it's fall not winter spring not summer cool not cold
And it's warm not hot have we all forgotten that we're getting old

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Songwriters: Stuart Ian Duncan / Aoife Maria O'Donovan / Edgar Meyer / Christopher Thile

Lyrics: Here and Heaven © Chris Thile Music, Cosmic Seed Music, Yerba Azul Music

This song is about settling for comfortable mediocrity, rather than reaching our full potential. Due to the title and some of the themes this could be about a Christian’s struggle with giving God everything and trusting that He will provide, instead of preferring to live in the comfortable, secure place between “Here and Heaven.”

The Goat Rodeo Sessions is a 2011 collaborative album by Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile, featuring Aoife O'Donovan. The album won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album and the Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

The Goat Rodeo sessions combine the talents of the four solo artists, each a Grammy Award-winning talent in his own right, to create a singular sound that's part composed, part improvised, and uniquely American. The music is so complex to pull off that the group likens it to a goat rodeo — an aviation term for a situation in which 100 things need to go right to avoid disaster. This album features the voice and artistry of singer-songwriter and fellow Grammy Award-winner Aoife O'Donovan.

The Los Angeles Times has described the collaboration as "unlikely musicians on unlikely instruments … part blues, part bluegrass and a smidgen of Bach." The four musicians come from diverse backgrounds: Yo-Yo Ma (cello), a classical cellist known for his cross-genre collaborations and deep belief in culture's essential role in society; Stuart Duncan (fiddle, banjo), a multi-instrument bluegrass virtuoso who has played with artists from Dolly Parton to George Strait; Edgar Meyer (bass), a double bassist and composer who has written for musicians from Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain to Emanuel Ax and Hilary Hahn; and Chris Thile (mandolin, fiddle, guitar, vocals), the mandolinist wunderkind who fronts bands such as Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers and hosts public radio's Live from Here. Their traditions and experiences intersect in this collaboration to create a compelling sound that is at once global and American, a shared voice that speaks to the moment in which we live.

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