One Old Song
Starting In the year 2000, I commuted by train to Portland State University (OR) from the little town of Boring. That had me crossing the Willamette River almost daily for 5 years. That’s how I got the idea for this song.
The fact that this is the only song I’ve written in all these years doesn’t bode well for my talent. But it’s a good indicator of my stubbornness. I smile when I think of all the songwriters who helped me do “just one more revision.”
It started as a song about Portland, but it became a song about me. It’s about a lonely gay kid in 1979 trying to escape his religion, finding comfort in booze and sex in the Navy.
The Portland Three-Step was released in 2018. In summer 2021, Sundown Sessions Studio did a great job with Send Your River. They suggested R&B. We found a wonderful singer, but the contract didn’t allow me to identify her. With the assistance of ItyDity and Ryan Stockbridge in winter 2021, we re-produced that song (Send Your River REDUX) using the same vocal recording. In summer of 2023, Sundown Sessions Studio came back to do a final version (Send Your River REDUX2), again using the same vocal recording. So, my gratitude to that vocalist is threefold.
The story is happy. Even with all its chaos, the Navy showed me how much of a regular Joe I am. I’m now in my 60’s. I have the love of family, friends and one particularly special man. Please be sure to tell the young people you know that, in this universe, they are perfect in every way by the simple virtue of having a beating heart. We’re all fabulous Joes, Janes and Jameys.
Thanks!
Keith A. Getchell
www.sendyourriver.com