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We've Got Stories

from My Northwest Home by Wes Weddell

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** BONUS: Not Included on Physical CD! **

It’s funny (I think) how excited people will become over stories that they cannot seem to articulate—so many times, I was unable to produce specific details from individuals’ claims of “I’ve/We’ve got tons of stories!” I think this must have something to do with the subtleties of regional identity: perhaps the combined character of several minor-seeming incidences manifests itself in a way that ultimately proves hard to describe to an ‘outsider.’ Or maybe you just had to be there. Nowhere was I greeted with more of this leading-on than in the Okanogan—the vast territory in the north-central part of Washington State. The impression that I received from the majority of those to whom I talked suggested that a wild, party-type lifestyle figured prominently into these individuals’ local pride. This often seems to be true of many old-frontier, ‘natural economy’ settings.

This region also contains Grand Coulee Dam, Woody Guthrie’s primary focus during his stint of employment by the Bonneville Power Administration in May 1941. Unlike Woody, however, I got the tour in glass elevators... “The suicide race down the canyon” refers to the Omak Stampede and Suicide Race, held annually.

lyrics

I went wandering through some country just last weekend
Looking for a song to bide my time,
And I asked a lot of folk what kept them busy,
And they looked at me with mischief in their eyes, and they said:

CHORUS
“Come back sometime when you’ve got a moment,
And we’ll tell you all there is to know and tell
We’ve got stories out the door and down the hallway—
It takes some time to know this country well!”

I pressed further in this quest for earthly knowledge,
Prayed for them to bless me with details
I heard something about pants around some ankles
But the rest they kept behind that wayward veil, but they said:

CHORUS

Woody hung around just down the highway,
Wrote about the river and the dams,
But he missed the suicide race down the canyon,
Though he probably met some folk who took the stand, who might say:

CHORUS

As I sit here tonight, the jukebox playing
That song about the wild side of life
My thoughts are drifting toward the rowdy Okanogan
Where the gossip won’t come out without a fight, but I will

Come back sometime when I’ve got a moment,
And take in all there is to know and tell
Even wild ones can’t resist a lofty story
That can build the country character so well

credits

from My Northwest Home, released December 8, 2001

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Wes Weddell Seattle, Washington

For the past twenty years, Wes Weddell has worked multiple shifts in the engine room of Seattle’s roots music scene as frontman, sideman, writer, teacher, and community-builder. "Always heartfelt and well-constructed" ("Seattle Weekly"), listeners have come to expect Weddell's songs to "speak for themselves" ("No Depression"). ... more

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