The Reason

Lyrics

[Intro]
It wasn't a fight. Not at first.
It was a simple calculation of winter.

[Verse 1]
Eight miles of mud in November.
Eight miles of ice in January.
The wind off the Assabet cutting through homespun cloth.
Eight miles with a child coughing in your arms, the horse slipping on the frozen bridle path.
Eight miles to hear the Word.
Eight miles to cast a vote on a new fence line.
We measured our piety in frozen boot leather
and the time it took to get home before the wolves started calling.
The Marlborough steeple was a ghost on the horizon.

[Chorus]
The remoteness of our dwellings from the public worship of God.
That was the reason.
The simple, heavy reason.
It renders it exceeding difficult.
So we wrote it down.

[Verse 2]
Joseph Woods held the quill.
The ink was cold.
We laid out the case for Boston, for the General Court.
Not a rebellion. A request.
A map of hardship drawn in careful script.
We sent our trouble down the road on a piece of paper,
hoping it would come back as timber and a steeple of our own.

[Chorus]
The remoteness of our dwellings from the public worship of God.
That was the reason.
The simple, heavy reason.
It renders it exceeding difficult.
That's what we wrote down.

[Bridge]
And Boston agreed.
The scratch of a quill on parchment.
January seventeenth, seventeen-seventeen.
A separate precinct.
They gave us our own minister, our own roof to gather under.
And for a time, they gave us two ministers to pay for.
One here, and the one still preaching eight miles away.
A double burden, the records call it.
We called it the price of a shorter road to God.

[Outro]
So we raised the frame on the common.
Chose the timbers with our own hands.
Heard our own bell cut the morning air.
A new sound.
We planted ourselves.
Right here.
The reason was the road.
The reason was the cold.
The reason was our children's future.
The reason was home.