St. Olav's Gate

Tom Russell wrote it around 1982, when he and Andrew Hardin went back to Norway to record. The title means St. Olav's Street, and an Oslo street inspired it; Dagbladet called it an Oslo hymn. A No Depression review heard in songs like it the mixed feelings of an immigrant with a foot in two worlds. Griffith recorded it for The Last of the True Believers at Cowboy Arms in Nashville in October 1985. Russell put out his own version as a single in 1991 and named a 1993 compilation Beyond St. Olav's Gate.

Live

Griffith was popular in Norway, where she visited four times in the five years to 1997 and where Other Voices, Other Rooms reached the top ten. She was still singing it there in November 2001, at Rockefeller in Oslo, one of only two songs by other writers that night. The upload in the hypersongs web is a live performance of St. Olav's Gate and From a Distance.