“Swale” Song –

June 1, 2019 – As Gustafson explained in conversation with NPR’s Scott Simon, though, Madelyn’s funeral wasn’t the first time she played the song for someone she knew — nor does she expect it to be the last. Gustafson says she wrote the song about 15 years ago for a friend who was suffering from a heroin addiction and whose whereabouts were often unclear. “I wanted to send him a message of hope: that there was always a way to come back home and to become recovered from his addiction” she says. This sentiment of inviting-home opens the track, at the top. “If you get lost / There is no danger / There is no danger,” Gustafson sings.  Underpinning the song, Gustafson says, is a sense of deep pain for addicts and their loved ones. It’s pain that she and Eric Olsen — her husband and fellow Swale member — are intimately familiar with. Olsen himself is a recovered heroine addict, sober for 11 years. (The two have been together for 17, and now have two daughters.) Gustafson says the experience of loving an addict has always colored “If You Get Lost,” from the song’s inception to its performance at Madelyn’s funeral.

Full Story @ NPR.org