Philadelphia Music Of The Day

Sailing to Philadelphia is the title track of Mark Knopfler’s second solo album which was released in September 2000. It concerns Mason and Dixon of Mason-Dixon Line fame.


I am Jeremiah Dixon
I am a Geordie boy
A glass of wine with you, sir
And the ladies I’ll enjoy
All Durham and Northumberland
Is measured up by my own hand
It was my fate from birth
To make my mark upon the earth….
He calls me Charlie Mason
A stargazer am I
It seems that I was born
To chart the evening sky
They’d cut me out for baking bread
But I had other dreams instead
This baker’s boy from the west country
Would join the Royal Society…..
We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
A Mason-Dixon Line
Now you’re a good surveyor, Dixon
But I swear you’ll make me mad
The West gonna kill us both
And you’re a gullible Geordie lad
You talk of liberty
How can America be free?
A Geordie and a baker’s boy
In the forests of the Iroquois….
Now hold your head up, Mason
See America lies there
The morning tide has raised
The capes of Delaware
Come up and feel the sun
A new morning has begun
Another day will make it clear
Why your star should guide us here….
We are sailing to Philadelphia
A world away from the coaly Tyne
Sailing to Philadelphia
To draw the line
A Mason-Dixon Line

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