Chris Thile's Laysongs is his first truly solo album: just Thile, his voice, and his mandolin, on new recordings of six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality.

Recorded in a converted upstate New York church during the pandemic, Laysongs features the three-part "Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth," which was inspired by C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters; a song Thile wrote about Dionysus; a selection from Béla Bartók's Sonata for Solo Violin; "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" based on Buffy Sainte-Marie's adaptation of a Leonard Cohen poem; and a Hazel Dickens cover.

Side A
1. Laysong
2. Ecclesiastes
3. God Is Alive Magic Is Afoot
4. Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth, Pt. 1
5. Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth, Pt. 2

Side B
1. Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth, Pt. 3
2. Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz. 117: IV. Presto
3. Dionysus
4. Won't You Come and Sing for Me