Act 1 · Track 01

The Historian

An old man, late in life, explains the record he is about to deliver to his son.

pov

the historian, opening the record

genre

Spoken-Sung Indie Folk

scripture

Words of Mormon

Lyrics

Verse 1

There is a book

And on the book there is a name

The name is not important yet

What matters is the hand

The hand was old when it wrote this down

The hand was tired

The hand had read a thousand lives

And cut them down to these

Verse 2

I am the one who carried it

I am the one who chose

What stayed in

What got left out

What you would hold

I read a thousand lives

And I cut them down to these

I am not the author

I am the one who kept

Pre-Refrain

There was a family who left a city

There was a son who would not let go

There was a king who fell on his face

There was a fire, there was a flood, there was a Visit

There was a peace

And then there was not

Refrain

These are the plates

These are the wars, these are the words

These are the fathers, these are the sons

These are the bones I carried home

This is the record

This is the record I have kept

Verse 3

You will not know me until the middle

You will not know my son until the end

We are not the story

We are the hands that held it

My people are gone now

The other ones are walking through the bones of us

I have one night left

And one son

And one record

Pre-Refrain

And there is Jesus Christ

Walking down the air

Holding the children

And the wounds in his hands

He is the reason

He is the reason the hand kept writing

He is why I cut the thousand years down to these

Final Refrain

These are the plates

These are the wars, these are the words

These are the fathers, these are the sons

These are the bones I carried home

(Listeners: ahh, ahh)

This is the record

This is the record I have kept

Outro

Now then

Let me show you a father

Standing at the edge of a river

With his hand out

Behind the Song

A hand opens the album

The first image in the song — and the album — is a hand. The hand was old when it wrote this down. The hand was tired. The hand had carried the record across a hill, into a hole, beneath the ground. The album begins with the historian's hand resting on the gold plates and will close with another hand resting on a printed book in 1830. Every cover featuring this historian shows the same gesture. The album is a four-thousand-year story told through hands that did not let go.

The name is not important yet

The album's first song establishes the album's central restraint. There is a book and on the book there is a name. The name is not important yet. The historian refuses to begin with proper nouns. He begins with what matters — a hand, a record, a long carrying. The careful listener catches the rule on the first song and watches it hold across thirty-three tracks. Names arrive only when the song earns them. The album's first deferral is also its discipline.

He tells you he will come back

The historian promises two returns in the first song — once in the middle, once at the end. The structural transparency is part of the song's gravity. He is not pretending to be invisible. He is naming what he is doing. The album is a thousand-year record edited by one man, and the man is willing to say so. Every other voice you will hear is a person he has chosen to let speak.

Jesus Christ, named in the second-to-last verse

The album's central figure is named for the first time in the song's second pre-refrain. Walking down the air. Holding the children. And the wounds in his hands. The historian gives the listener the central image of the whole record before he gives any other character a name. The reason the record exists is named first. Everything else in the album is people on their way to him or away from him.

The handoff

The song does not end. It hands off. The outro is spoken, not sung — the drone returns to a single note and the historian points to the next song. Now then. Let me show you a father. Standing at the edge of a river. With his hand out. The album's first transition is a verbal one because the historian wants the listener to feel the deliberateness of the editing. He chose what comes next. He is showing it to you on purpose.