Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

PETER OSTROUSHKO: For me, as a songwriter, I almost always come up with a melody. And a lot of times, the melody will dictate what the song is going to be about. Let's say "Mandela," like I say, was written while he was still in prison. So that song came about-- the fellow who plays guitar with me, Dean McGraw, and I were on a tour, and we were in Seattle.

And at some point during the conversation, I believe I said, I wonder what Mandela is having for breakfast right now? And someone responded, oh, he's probably having gruel again. And that was the basis of the song. I think, that evening, after our concert on Orcas Island, I was sitting back, and I just started doing this thing on the guitar.

[GUITAR MUSIC]

Anyway, that melody just kind of came into my head, and I just took that bit of conversation.

[PETER OSTROUSHKO, "MANDELA"] What did Mandela have at dawn

What did they bring him for breakfast

They brought him gruel again

They brought him gruel again

And so that's how the song developed.

JOHN RABE: You talk about how people are often surprised how much you sing in concert. And it reminds me of being in college. I'd be sitting around with a particular group of friends, and we would be listening to music. And one of the guys would always say, we've heard too much instrumental music, I have to hear somebody singing. I have to hear some music with somebody singing. Because for some reason or another, there wasn't that something happening?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Yeah. Well, I think that's for the bigger populace, I think, in the world. I've discovered, as much as I love playing instrumental music, I can sit and endlessly doodle on my mandolin forever and be thoroughly entertained by it.

JOHN RABE: You mentioned your family a bunch of times. And your father was Ukrainian, father and mother?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Father and mother, yeah, they were Ukrainian immigrants.

JOHN RABE: There's a song called "My People" on your album. We're talking with Peter Ostroushko about his new album, Pilgrims on the Heart Road, on which he plays guitar, mandolin, and also sings. And in this song, you sing about people picking potatoes, eating pig meat, voting Republican, drinking vodka.

[LAUGHTER]

Do you do all those things?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: I do--

JOHN RABE: Three out of four?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: --I do a number of them. Usually in my concert, my concerts, I try to do at least one Ukrainian piece, if not more. I grew up listening to Ukrainian music in my house. Actually, for the first five years of my life, that was the only language I knew. I went to kindergarten not really knowing English. And when I still speak with my mother, I speak Ukrainian. And I do my banking at the Ukrainian credit union. And I'm still very much in touch with that part of my life, that Ukrainian part of my life.

And rather than try to go into long-winded explanations, which sometimes I would do on stage, about growing up Ukrainian and what my heritage was like, I decided to just write a song about it as kind of a stepping stone. And all the things that I write about in this particular song are true. [LAUGHS] I tried to write it in a funny way.

[PETER OSTROUSHKO, "MY PEOPLE"]

(SINGING) My people they're built low to the ground

Low to the ground low to the ground

My people they're built low to the ground

For picking potatoes

All my people they were born to work and toil

In a very fertile soil they call Ukraina

My people they were born to suffer and toil

And pick potatoes

All my people they love to eat pig meat

Like pickled piggy feet and head cheese

That's oh so sweet

My people they love to eat piggy meat

When they not picking potatoes

And then it kind of goes on into other places. But all those things are-- the thing about priests having garlic on their breath is very true. In the religion that I grew up in, the Eastern Orthodox religion, it's like Catholicism in that so much of it's based on the fact that you confess and take the Holy Sacrament to redeem yourself.

So confession in the Catholic Church seems civilized in that they have the confessionals. You don't know who you're confessing to. But in the church I grew up in, you go up to the front of the church, before the service, and the priest comes and gives you confession in front of the congregation.

JOHN RABE: How long do you have to talk?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Not that the congregation hears what you're saying. The priests wear these long robes, gilded robes. And it's kind of like Bela Lugosi. He comes up to you, and he raises his robe, and he puts it over your head so that there's the two of you entwined in his robe, and his face is just an inch from your face.

And as a child, I remember going to do my first confession, and having the priest open his mouth an inch from mine, and this waft of garlic breath came out over me. And at that time, you will be confessing anything. You will confess to anything as long-- say it, spit it out as fast as you can so that you can get out of there.

JOHN RABE: We're talking with Peter Ostroushko, who is out with a new album called Pilgrims on the Heart Road, in which he sings, plays mandolin and guitar. A lot of guest stars on the album, including Bobby McFerrin and Butch Thompson, among a lot of others. Before I let you go, would you play us a Ukrainian folk song?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: I would love to. Actually, I don't even know a name for this one. But it's a real typical Ukrainian folk song. It mentions the nightingale, which is a real popular image that appears in a lot of Ukrainian folk songs.

[GUITAR MUSIC]

[SINGING IN UKRAINIAN]