| "The Lighthouse's Tale" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Nickel Creek | ||||
| from the album Nickel Creek | ||||
| B-side | "The Fox", "Let It Fall" | |||
| Released | 2001 | |||
| Recorded | 1999 | |||
| Genre | Progressive bluegrass | |||
| Length | 5:01 | |||
| Label | Sugar Hill | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Adam McKenzie Chris Thile | |||
| Producer(s) | Alison Krauss | |||
| Nickel Creek singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"The Lighthouse's Tale" is a song by progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek, taken from their debut album, Nickel Creek , released in 2001.
"The Lighthouse's Tale" was written by Adam McKenzie & Chris Thile. At five minutes and one second, it is the longest single ever released by Nickel Creek. A sequel to the song, "The Lighthouse's Tale, Part 2", was played by Nickel Creek at several of their concerts, but not released with the single.[ citation needed ]
A music video for the song was released with the single and featured footage of the band at various locations. These include many locations near water, such as a lighthouse by the ocean, a bridge over a small river, and a mountainside lake. The lighthouse in the video is the Cape Neddick Light, near York, Maine. [1]
"The Lighthouse's Tale" is about a lighthouse, the keeper, and his fiancée. The lighthouse serves as a narrator to tell how the keeper was going to marry a beautiful woman who had to sail in a fierce storm. She doesn't survive the journey. The next day, the lighthouse "watched as he [the keeper] buried her in the sand. And then he climbed my tower, and off of the edge of me he ran." The lighthouse concludes by saying "and though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way." The haunting lyrics of the chorus are: "And the waves crashing around me, the sand slips out to sea, and the winds that blow remind me of what has been and what can never be."
A critic for the Houston Chronicle said in an article regarding the release of Why Should the Fire Die? that Nickel Creek once "sung sweetly about foxes and lighthouses," however, two thirds of the characters in "The Lighthouse's Tale" die. [2]
| Chart (2001) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart | 147 |
| US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [3] | 49 |
Nickel Creek is an American bluegrass band consisting of Chris Thile (mandolin), and siblings Sara Watkins (fiddle) and Sean Watkins (guitar). Formed in 1989 in Southern California, they released six albums between 1993 and 2006. The band broke out in 2000 with a platinum-selling self-titled album produced by Alison Krauss, earning a number of Grammy and CMA nominations.
Sean Charles Watkins is an American guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He is a member of the contemporary folk band Nickel Creek, the duo Fiction Family and the supergroup Works Progress Administration. He is the brother of Sara Watkins.
Christopher Scott Thile is an American mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and radio personality, best known for his work in the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk and progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow. From 2016 to its cancellation in 2020, he hosted the radio variety show Live from Here.
Why Should The Fire Die? is the third major album release and fifth album overall by progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. The album was released on Sugar Hill on August 9, 2005, in the United States, and on August 8 in the United Kingdom. Why Should the Fire Die? is the first Nickel Creek album to feature string bassist Mark Schatz. It would be their last album before their hiatus between 2007 and 2014, after which they released their album A Dotted Line.
Sara Ullrika Watkins is an American singer-songwriter and fiddler. Watkins debuted in 1989 as the fiddler of Nickel Creek, the progressive bluegrass group she formed with her brother Sean and mandolinist Chris Thile. In addition to singing and fiddling, Watkins also plays the ukulele and the guitar, and also played percussion while touring with the Decemberists. In 2012, she and her brother played with Jackson Browne during his "I'll Do Anything" acoustic tour.
This Side is the Grammy-winning third album by the progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek, released on Sugar Hill in the summer of 2002. It gained attention in indie rock circles due to the group's recording of a Pavement song, "Spit on a Stranger". Alison Krauss acted as a producer for the album.
Mutual Admiration Society is an album featuring the collaboration between Nickel Creek's Chris Thile, Sara Watkins, and Sean Watkins, and Glen Phillips, the former lead singer of folk-rock group Toad the Wet Sprocket. It was recorded in three days in December 2000, but took 3½ years to be released.
Nickel Creek is an album by the acoustic/newgrass trio Nickel Creek. The group had released two albums prior to this; however, their earlier albums are no longer in print, and the band redefined their style before the release of Nickel Creek. It was released by Sugar Hill Records, and produced by bluegrass star Alison Krauss.
Sugar Hill Records is an American bluegrass and Americana record label.
"Scotch & Chocolate" is an instrumental song played by the modern bluegrass band Nickel Creek. It was the fourth song on Nickel Creek's album, Why Should the Fire Die?. In 2006, Scotch & Chocolate was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost is the third solo album by American virtuoso mandolinist Chris Thile. It was released on Sugar Hill in 2001.
Reasons Why: The Very Best is a compilation album by the band Nickel Creek, released on Sugar Hill in late 2006. It is the band's fourth album. As of June 20, 2007, the band has sold approximately 60,000 copies of the compilation.
"When You Come Back Down" was the debut single by progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek from their self titled debut album. The song is a cover of the bluegrass musician Tim O'Brien's original version. The song was written by Danny O'Keefe and Tim O'Brien.
"This Side" was the first single by the progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek from their second album, This Side. Sean Watkins takes vocal duties for "This Side".
This article represents the discography of progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek. They have released six studio albums, one compilation album, as well as eight singles. Their debut live album was announced on October 2, 2020.
Aoife O'Donovan is an American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter. She is best known as the lead singer for the string band Crooked Still and she also co-founded the Grammy Award-winning female folk trio I'm with Her. She has released three critically acclaimed studio albums: Fossils (2013), In the Magic Hour (2016), and Age of Apathy, as well as multiple noteworthy live recordings and EPs, including Blue Light (2010), Peachstone (2012), Man in a Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge (2016), In the Magic Hour: Solo Sessions (2019), and Bull Frog's Croon (2020). She also spent a decade contributing to the radio variety shows Live from Here and A Prairie Home Companion. Her first professional engagement was singing lead for the folk group The Wayfaring Strangers.
Sarah Ellen Jarosz is an American singer-songwriter from Wimberley, Texas. Her first album, Song Up in Her Head, was released in 2009 and the tune "Mansinneedof" was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Country Instrumental Performance. Her second album, Follow Me Down, released in 2011, received a Song of the Year nomination from the Americana Music Association's 2012 Honors and Awards. Her third album, Build Me Up from Bones, was released on September 24, 2013 through Sugar Hill Records. Build Me Up from Bones was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, and its title track was nominated for Best American Roots Song. In 2016 Jarosz released her fourth album, Undercurrent. The album won two Grammy awards.
Deceiver is the fourth solo album by American newgrass mandolinist Chris Thile, released on Sugar Hill in 2004. It features a total of 39 instruments, all played by Thile himself. The instruments played on the album include the mandolin, mandola, bass guitar, electric guitar, piano, violin, banjo and various percussion instruments. In 2005, the album was nominated the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical to the album's engineers, Thile and Gary Paczosa.
A Dotted Line is the fourth major album release and sixth studio album overall by progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. Produced by Eric Valentine, the album was released on Nonesuch Records on April 1, 2014, in the United States.
Celebrants is the fifth major album release by progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek released on 24 March 2023 via Thirty Tigers.
