On The next inland sessions.

He says the ghost of Abuelito to him when he's afraid.

His spirit comes down...

I'm Kristen Grainger.

and I'm Dan Wetzel and we're the True North Duo.

I hope you'll join us tonight On inland sessions.

You are the rock.

You are the hard place.

You are the slow burn and the quickest about face.

Your kind of turbulence separates continents.

But the garden of your sweet peace bears no resemblance.

You are the prophet.

You are the fool.

You're the exception.

Always proves the rule.

Your kind of insolence shatters my confidence, but the garden of your sweet peace bears no resemblance.

Stitch my shadow to my heels.

Steer me clear of battlefields, point out rogue banana peels.

I should be alright.

You are the old growth.

You are the ax.

You are the truth that gets in the way.

You're the cold hard facts.

Your kind of soulfulness counters my woefulness, but in the garden or your sweet peace there's no loneliness.

I got a feeling, can't put a name to.

Like I've been walking in my sleep and I finally came to.

We can only play the cards we got.

And you are the hard place.

You are the rock.

Stitch my shadow to my heels, steer me clear of battlefields, point out rogue banana peels and give me strength not to fight and I will say with this guitar, that I know what the trade offs are, and I have wished on every star so I should be alright.

I'm Dan Wetzel.

I'm a former custom home builder recently retired from that.

And now a full-time musician just in time for the COVID pandemic to cancel a year's worth of shows, but we're coming back.

This is a quick comeback.

So, And I'm Kristen Grainger.

I'm a singer songwriter and a recovering strategic communications person in politics and higher education.

Dan and I are the co-founders of the band True North.

We play the duo and in a quartet.

That first song was a song that Kristen wrote.

In fact, all the songs that we're playing today are originals written by Kristen.

This next one is from our newest record called Ghost Tattoo.

We had a number one album, even during the pandemic and a number one single, and this is that single.

It's called Keep the River on Your Right.

It goes just like this.

Mid-October the geese are flying over headed for the coast.

But you're not here, it seems this time of year is when I feel it most.

And all that talk of heaven well, it never resonated back in Sunday school.

But I found my religion on a windy mountain ridge and on a river bank with you.

When melancholy gets into my way, I remember what you used to say.

Keep the river on your right.

You can't go wrong with the river on your right.

And if you've lost your way and you're running out of daylight, keep the river on your right.

The autumn leaves, they whisper in the trees against an endless sky.

Despite it all, every leaf must fall just like you and I.

And if there is a heaven.

Well I bet you got your campsite all staked out.

And if there's a heaven.

I bet you play that country station way too loud.

When melancholy gets into my way.

I remember what you used to say, keep the river on your right.

You can't go wrong with the river on your right.

And if you've lost your way, and you're running out a daylight, keep the river on your right.

Keep the river on your right.

You can't go wrong with the river on your right.

And if you've lost your way and you're running out of daylight, keep the river on your right.

Keep the river on your right.

I was a poetry, creative writing major at the University of Washington.

I've always been fascinated with words and music.

I never really wrote a lot of music, but I've always been a singer.

And I don't know why I never really connected the writing poetry, putting it to music, but I really didn't for quite a while.

I also think that you can't write good songs until you've had your heart good and broken.

I can blame my happy childhood that I really didn't have anything to write about or to say until I got into the world and I experienced life and I started writing.

I wrote my first song when I was 35 and I've never stopped.

We're going to do a song Kristen wrote quite a while back.

She's been an award winning songwriter for years and has placed or won in places like Telluride, Kerrville and MerleFest and Wildflower.

This is one of the songs that helped her do that early on.

It's one that we did on a duet record a number of years ago.

It's called Doris Dean.

My name's Doris Dean and I was born in 1917.

I turned 90 years old today or it could've been yesterday.

I really couldn't say.

My mother named me Doris Dean for some trick rider she had seen.

Some kind of all time wild west show, it was part circus, part rodeo.

Don't have those anymore.

That's something that I wish I'd seen, the brave and beautiful Doris Dean.

Her form feeds the courage and grace, never break sweat, every hair in place.

Wish I could learn to ride like that in a split skirt and a Star-Spangled cowboy hat.

Maybe everything would have turned out differently, for me, Doris Dean McConaghy.

Farming beans out in Oregon, got us through the depression.

Then the winter I turned 23, I married Robert McConaghy.

He ran the cannery.

Three months later, maybe four, Rob went off to fight the big war.

Shot down on the sea of Japan or so said the telegram I got from Uncle Sam.

That's something that I wish I had seen the brave and beautiful Doris Dean.

Her form feeds the courage and grace, never break sweat, big smile on her face.

I wish I could learn to ride like that and a satin shirt and Star-Spangled cowboy hat.

Maybe everything would have turned out differently, for me, Doris Dean McConaghy.

Sometimes I lie here thinking and sometimes I just lie, pretend that there's some greater plan.

It's not my place to wonder why.

But 90 years later, I must petition my creator is this all there is, this hill beans, for lesser of two, Doris Deans.

Because That's something that I wish I'd been, the brave and beautiful Doris Dean who could look back with courage and grace and see my ordinary life was no disgrace.

Sure I could learn to ride like that though I'd probably do without the cowboy hat.

Maybe then I'd see it all differently.

And me Doris Dean McConaghy.

Doris Dean McConaghy I started building instruments when I was in college.

I was going to school in Pullman, but got a job in Glacier Park in the summers and fell in love with Montana and soon moved to Montana and dropped out of college to become a Montana resident and eventually finished school there.

But while I was there, I got a job in a little back of a music store where they made flat iron mandolins.

I learned and I was part of a crew there, a very small group at the time.

I just really loved that work building instruments and then life went on and I had a different career and I got married and years and years later, I decided to go back and build a guitar.

I had always wanted to get back to that.

And it's just such a great mix of art and science.

You're watching the art develop the whole time in your hands and you're making these changes and deciding what to do.

You do not know how it's going to sound until the day you string it up.

Then it's either a pleasant surprise, or it's a clock on the wall or a planter.

And the ukulele I made for Kristen as a Christmas present, kind of a surprise.

She had recently taken up the ukulele then and was starting to write a lot of songs on it and had a very inexpensive one that she bought.

I just thought it'd be nice to make her something out of whole mahogany that she could play.

So that's where that one came from.

Here's one that Kristen wrote about a place in our hometown called the Dark Horse Bar and Grill.

It goes like this.

Dark Horse Bar and Grill knows you've had your fill of getting out of bed to push that boulder up the hill and you can hide your car behind the Dark Horse Grill and Bar.

They'll be glad to see you.

And they don't care who you are, or who we are letting down in some other part of town.

The Dark Horse has a special vault, for storing things that aren't your fault.

The Dark Horse specialty is a time worn recipe.

Blend two parts denial with a mottled memory.

You can get your fill on $20 bill.

And if that doesn't do the trick, the whiskey always will.

The Bourbon and the Scotch will kick it up a notch.

The dark horse has a special vault for storing things that aren't your fault.

There's carpet on the walls.

In case somebody falls.

Lots of free philosophy on all the bathroom stalls.

The bar stools in a row.

The TV's silent glow.

Everything's familiar, but there's no one there you know.

And nothing's very hard.

You just give the man your card, the Dark Horse has a special vault, for storing things that aren't your fault.

The Dark Horse Bar and Grill knows you've had your fill of getting out of bed to push that boulder up the hill.

The Dark Horse has a special vault for storing things that aren't your fault.

Whatever you need hiding from, whatever you find troublesome.

So hand it over, but you know, you have to take it with you when you go.

Everybody's been in a bar like that even if you haven't been in the Dark Horse Bar and Grill.

We moved to Spokane when I was eight years old and my father came over here to start an orthopedic practice.

And my three brothers and I grew up, went to Wilson Elementary and Sacajawea Junior High and to Lewis and Clark, graduated from LC and went to University of Washington, graduated from there and moved down to Oregon to work in politics.

And I worked in politics for a long time.

This next song is one that I wrote in response to a call from Neil Young not a call to me, but a call to all artists to pay attention to what was going on, on the border of the U.S. and Mexico with kids being separated from their parents.

I wrote the song from the point of view of a child, and it's called the Ghost of Abuelito.

Abuelito is a diminutive of grandfather, for grandpa in Spanish.

And it goes like this.

Miguel, my brother, he's 11.

I am Alma.

I am seven, old enough to remember home.

The sound of gunfire in the night, an ordinary part of life.

At least the only life I've ever known.

Miguel refused to cry the day we headed north from Ecuador to the USA.

Even when we gave our dog away.

Even after throwing stones to make her stay.

He says the ghost of Abuelito comes to him When he's afraid.

His spirit comes down from the stars, still smells of coffee and cigars.

But when he is there, Miguel is brave.

Abuelito wanted it that way.

Across the border things got tense with our backs against the fence, all those uniforms and guns.

Americanos took our mother one direction and us the other and we haven't seen our mother since.

Inside a hundred babies cry.

I can't stop myself from always asking why.

When will my mama come to get me?

Did she go off and forget me?

And Miguel just takes my hand and sighs.

He says the ghost of Abuelito comes to us when were afraid.

His spirit comes down from the stars, still smells of coffee and cigars.

But when he is there, we'll both be brave.

Abuelito wanted it that way.

He says, Abuelito told him America will always take you in.

Her gates are guarded by a goddess.

She welcomes you no matter where you've been.

Minutes to hours, days to weeks, Miguel, my brother hardly speaks.

Bit by bit he's disappearing.

I asked him if he'd say the prayer, the one that brings Abuelito here.

He says Abuelito is hard of hearing.

Inside a hundred babies cry, the ones that are old enough to talk keep asking why.

When will my mama come to get me, did she go off and forget me?

And I take their tiny hands and lie.

I say the ghost of Los Abuelos guard us as we sleep under the moon.

Abuelos hate to see us suffer.

They're out searching for our mothers and they'll bring our mothers soon.

Abuelos hate to see us suffer.

They're out searching for our mothers and they'll bring our mothers soon.

So this next song is one I wrote for a friend of mine who died young.

I wrote it and played it at the Wildflower songwriting contest in Richardson, Texas, and this song won the contest, but it also means a lot to me just because it's for my friend who died too soon.

So it was for everybody who's lost somebody far too early and it's called The Ratio of Angels to Demons.

One, two, three.

Today was our final farewell.

It was awkward for you I could tell.

So I smiled and said see you in hell and I tossed my rose.

Did you laugh at the look on my face?

When they broke into Amazing Grace.

That old funeral parlor cliche, I know you never chose.

Somebody give me a reason.

You don't get to play out the season or hazard a guess at the unevenness of the ratio of angels to demons.

You'll accuse me of trying to be clever, but a part of me will ache forever, like a place where a limb has been severed.

How's that for a rhyme?

Biographies written in shock, washed away by the rain on the sidewalk, you played scissors but fate, it plays rock It wins every time.

Somebody give me a reason.

You don't get to play out the season or hazard a guess at the unevenness in the ratio of angels to demons.

Today was our final farewell.

It was awkward for you I could tell.

So I smiled and said see you in hell and I tossed my rose.

We're going to do one more song.

We wanted to let you know that we are again called True North Duo.

This is Kristen Grainger and I'm Dan Wetzel.

We also play as a four piece band.

And you can find out things about both the duo and the band at our website, true north band.com and also our Facebook and Instagram handles at True north band PNW for Facebook and at true north PNW for Instagram.

Anyway, thanks everybody here at Inland Sessions for hosting us, having us and thanks all of you out there for tuning in.

Here's the last song that Kristen wrote called.

She Flies With Her Own Wings.

And that's the Oregon state motto for you Washingtonians.

She says, come on over we got work to do.

She says, don't just stand there, there's a place for you and you and you and you cause it's true with different points of view or hands and eyes and hearts to make a plan to follow through.

She flies with her own wings.

She's on the lookout for better things.

She's keeping her eyes on that Western horizon.

And as the storm is blowing, she's going to get where she's going.

Despite her bruises and bee stings, she relies on her own wings.

She says, it's only thunder.

Don't be frightened.

The thing to watch for is the lightening.

Yeah, the lightening is the thing that destroys.

The thunder is just a noise, a bully with a megaphone who threatens and annoys.

She flies with her own wings.

She's on the lookout for better things.

She's keeping her eyes on that Western horizon.

And as the storm is blowing, she's going to get where she's going.

Despite her bruises and bee stings, she relies on own wings.

And up on that timber line in a tall stand of trees.

She's waiting for the sun to rise again.

Night fades to morning new, the sky shades in rose and blue.

She takes a breath and leaps into the currents of the wind.

She flies with her own wings.

She's on the lookout for better things.

She's keeping her eyes on that Western horizon and as the storm is blowing, she's going to get where she's going.

Despite her bruises and bee stings, she relies on her own wings.

And she says, come on over.

We got work to do.