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PETER OSTROUSHKO: When I first started the project out, I wasn't thinking about a trilogy. But to me, the music was very connected from the first CD, which was all instrumental to the second, which is all songs and vocals that I've written. The third one is going to go back to the instrumental format.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Well, the songs on your new CD, Pilgrims on the Heart Road, are really personal. I mean, if you examine the lyrics and examine the content, it definitely feels like we get to know Peter Ostroushko through these songs.

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Since the time I've picked up a guitar when I was 10 years old, I've always wrote lyrics to go along with melodies that I've written. And so I've always enjoyed doing that. But I am not what I would consider someone who is a spends their time working on the craft of songwriting. If I write a song, it's because I need to write something to let it out.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Let's play a sample from your CD, Pilgrims on the Heart Road. We're going to play cut number seven, "I'm so glad you came into my life." And can you set that up a little bit for us?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Sure. My wife and I adopted a Korean girl. We got her when she was four months old. And at the airport when we went to pick her up, we got a packet from Children's Home Society, which is the agency we went through. And there were things, forms, that we had to sign. Of course, you're so excited. It's like a delivery happening.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Mhm.

PETER OSTROUSHKO: The hospital just happens to be Gate 3A and the gold concourse. And so you're not looking at all this stuff, but there's just tons of paperwork. And in that paperwork, as I was kind of shoveling through it, nervously waiting for the plane to come, there was a poem in there-- "Not bone of my bone, nor flesh of my flesh, but still miraculously my own. Never forget, not for one single moment. Though you didn't grow under my heart, you grew in it." And I mean, that really speaks to anyone who's adopted a child.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Well, let's take a listen to "I'm so glad you came into my life" by Peter Ostroushko.

[PETER OSTROUSHKO, "I'M SO GLAD YOU CAME INTO MY LIFE"]

I'm so glad you came into my life

I'm so glad you're finally home

Every day, in every way, I thank the Lord above me

The stars they lit the heavens bright

And the angels sang for us that night

I'm so glad you came into my life

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Peter Ostroushko, how old is your little girl now?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: She turned six in November.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Six. Wow. That's fabulous. Now, your dad came from the Ukraine, and he settled in Northeast Minneapolis. So you are a boy who grew up in Northeast Minneapolis?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Oh, yeah, I'm a hometown boy.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: And your dad was a shoemaker?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Shoemaker, shoe repairman, philosopher, card trick.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: And you pay tribute to the Ukrainians of your neighborhood in a very entertaining song on your CD called "My People."

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Right. I just had to finally write a true song about my people. My people are very cultured race. A lot of great music and art and all kinds of things came out of the Ukraine. And from my experience of growing up in Northeast and eating Ukrainian food, this song is as true as it gets. And I got sick of people coming up to me and asking me if Ostroushko was an Irish name. No, it is Ostroushko. It's pronounced Ostroushko in Ukrainian.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Well, let's take a listen to cut number four, "My people," off of Peter Ostroushko's new CD.

[PETER OSTROUSHKO, "MY PEOPLE"] 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

And they pick potatoes

All my people, they were born to work and toil in a very fertile soil they call Ukrahina

My people, they were born to suffer and toil pick potatoes

My people, they love to eat pig meat

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Have you ever picked potatoes yourself?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Sure.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: You have?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: I've grown them.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: You have?

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Oh, yeah. You can't live in Northeast without having a garden in the backyard.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: You talk about child abuse on one of the cuts of your CD, and I'm wondering why you felt you needed to say something about child abuse.

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Well, that's a real simple one to answer because I was abused when I was a child. I had a singular episode, a small boy walking home from the ice rink. And there it happened. And it was not one of those things. When something like that happens to you as a child, you adjust and get on with your life. But something definitely changes about the way you are and the way you think about things and the way you react to things. And it wasn't really until I became an adult and actually had to go through therapy to really work through it that I was able to at least face the event that happened in my life and start recognizing how that changed me and how I relate to the world as an adult. I wrote it to get my own demons out. But whenever I sing it in public, I am just amazed at how many people will come up to me and say something about it. Like you said before, you get to know Peter Ostroushko from the CD. Yeah.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: That's a part of you.

PETER OSTROUSHKO: That's part of me.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Mhm. Well, let's listen to that very powerful song, "You don't know what lonely is." And I want to remind people that you're performing tonight at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis.

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Right.

GRETA CUNNINGHAM: Peter Ostroushko, thank you for coming in.

PETER OSTROUSHKO: Thank you for having me, Greta.

[PETER OSTROUSHKO, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LONELY IS"] Oh, baby, you don't know what lonely is

You don't know how deep the pain

You can't know what lonely is 'til you looked into my eyes

Once I laughed as a child at play

And now I laugh to keep the hurt away

Once I searched for the rainbow's end

And now I hide from there

The past might find me again

Where he put the razor's edge right to my skin

And carnal ranging stole my innocence

Taught me to cry and keep it in

Oh, the silent screams of children lost in the wind

Oh, baby, you don't know what lonely is

You don't know how deep the pain

You can't know what lonely is 'til you look into my eyes

Who-o-o-o-o, who-o-o-o, who-o-o, who-o-o-o