Wind/Tree
The stronger the wind is, the stronger the tree [chorus]
Have you seen it, have you touched the truth,
have you ridden that train or taken a longer look?
Have you walked that walk, have you taken the leap,
have you found a friend or have you lost him?
Did you take the blame, have you carried that weight,
did you hold somebody's hand when they needed you one day?
Did you swallow that pill, did you right that wrong,
have you taken that chance or is it long gone?
Did you love well, were you stupid sometimes,
do you keep up with the Jone's, do you apologize?
Keeping everything in order, did you make a little mess
'tween the loving and the grieving and the regrets?
Did you fall down, did you bury that pride,
Did you choke on lover's tears or run a hundred miles high?
Did the devil take you under, did redemption bring you release,
have you figured out the answer to the mystery?
Sue Demel
(Dedicated to our friends Liz--who plays the didgeridoo here, & Steve who struggled through life until an organ donor and donor family saved their lives and let them breathe with new lungs. And to Steve's donor, Kari Westberg, and Lizzy's anonymous donor, who they think about every day. Be someone's hero, consider organ donation!)
Sons of the Never Wrong are my favorite little band on the planet - I absolutely adore them... I was invited to a backyard concert which they were involved in... It was a "Got Well" party thrown for a precious young lady with cystic fibrosis who had received two beautiful lungs that allowed her to live, and "Got Well"... The Sons and Tom Dundee and Kat Eggleston threw a free concert in her honor... My wife and I fell in love with the Sons and now we follow them everywhere...
The precious young lady who received the two beautiful lungs is Lizzy - And I am Steve... We're the Liz and Steve in the dedication that appears in the liner notes of their "Nuthatch Suite" CD... I too have cystic fibrosis. The other person in the dedication was Kari Westberg - an incredibly intelligent, athletic and beautiful girl from Iowa. Kari brought her beautiful smile into my life when she passed away in April 2000, and she and her family gave me both of her lungs... Kari was 17 and had told her family how strongly she felt about organ donation twice during the month before she passed. On the CD, you can hear Lizzy's beautiful new lungs as she plays the didgeridoo in the beginning and background of Wind/Tree...I think the title of the song is particularly fitting for Lizzy and her didg - a didgeridoo is an instrument made from a hollowed tree. And Liz plays her didg with wind that was a gift.
I fell in love with "Wind/Tree" the moment I heard it... I told Sue Demel that the refrain and the song reminded me of Lizzy and me -- That sometimes when you face a strong wind in life, it makes you a stronger tree... Sue changed a line in the song to "run a hundred miles high" for me and Lizzy -- The past several years we've taken our beautiful new lungs 94 floors up the stairwells of the John Hancock Center for the American Lung Association and the "Hustle up the Hancock." And Lizzy and I were incredibly touched when Sue dedicated the song to us on the CD liner notes... And like Sue wrote -- I do think about Kari Westberg every day, and Lizzy thinks about her donor every day...
The Sons of the Never Wrong are awesome... I love their music -- They have so many fun, and heart felt songs... And if you have the chance, you really need to see them in person -- They're more fun than their music... And after you see them, their CDs become much more rich... You can see their schedule or order a CD via their website (below) or through Amazon.com.
More about Lizzy is at the bottom of my first webpage - You can also read a little about her, by her, at: (Click on the "Liz Feistamel" link!)
Gift of Hope -- Inspirations Tribute Book
Sons of the Never Wrong - http://www.sons.com/
Bruce Roper: guitar, vocals
Deborah Maris Lader: guitar, mandolin, vocals
Sue Demel: guitars, vocals, djembe drums
Link to Son's CDs at Amazon.com
