Start Your Week With Iron & Wine And A Moment Of Calm

Look, it's gonna be a tough week. Maybe you stayed up late watching the Oscars and you're already underslept; maybe there's a lot going on at work right now; and certainly, if nothing else, whatever transpires in the news will accumulate so quickly, you won't believe that only four days have passed by the time we get to Friday.

So take a minute. Breathe. Take a sip of coffee — or water, or the hair of the dog that bit you — and just hold still for a moment. Put on your headphones, sit back, give yourself just a little less than three minutes, and let Iron & Wine's Sam Beam perform a gorgeous cover of Innocence Mission's 2003 song "Tomorrow on the Runway," taped live at Wilco's studio The Loft in Chicago. No matter how much chaos roils your social-media feeds in the next few days, Beam's voice will still be there whenever you need it.

Iron & Wine originally recorded a cover of "Tomorrow on the Runway" for Stephanie Laing's new film Irreplaceable You, which stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw; it came out via Netflix on February 16.

"Stephanie approached me about a particular scene in the film and asked if I could write an original song," Beam writes via email. "Unfortunately, I wasn't able to commit to that, but when "Tomorrow on the Runway" came to mind, it seemed like a wonderful match. The song feels like an elegy, which was appropriate for the tone of the movie, and it's long been a favorite of mine because the melody is so beautiful. Working with Stephanie was a pleasure, and I've been an Innocence Mission fan for a long time, so getting a chance to record one of their songs was a real treat, as well."

Iron & Wine's newest album, Beast Epic, came out last year via Sub Pop.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.