This is
a wonderful song from Mark Knopfler’s solo album of the same name. I
particularly enjoy the melding of their two voices, it’s too bad they haven’t
sung together since (as far as my research seems to tell). It’ s a much better
blending of voices than the Elton John/Cat Stevens “Honey Man”, that came out
in the Cat Stevens box set around ten years ago. I like both, but that song
just does not do it for me.
“Sailing
to Philadelphia” tells the story of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, the two
Englishmen who surveyed and marked the Mason-Dixon line, which established the
disputed boundaries between the English colonies of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
Delaware.
The
Mason-Dixon line became a cultural boundary between the North and the South in
the Civil War era and beyond.
That’s
about it…no memories evoked, just a nice little song.
