Wanted to make the right Christmas present for a pair of outdoorsy friends, and was casting about until I remembered Fleet Foxes’ “Going to the Sun Road,” a song from their most recent original album Shore. It’s enough of a seed kernel for a tangible object and a cover.

Last year, or the year before, I’d made a set of variations for handbell choir, and gifted it to some dear handbell-playing friends. This new cover seems like the right thing to spend a few hours whetting myself on.

I just copied down the lyrics to study.