Sierra Spirit – I’ll Be Waiting (PUG)
After drawing attention from both music fans and the industry alike with the release of her first two singles “ghost” and “televangelic,” Sierra Spirit Kihega, who records and performs as Sierra Spirit, is set to expand her growing fanbase with the release of her new single and homage to her grandma, “i’ll be waiting (pug).” The track marks the first for her new musical home Giant Music and further exemplifies the depth of Spirit’s musical talents and storytelling.
Spirit is a member of the Otoe-Missouria tribe and the Keetoowah Band of Cherokees. Though she now calls Connecticut home, Spirit’s music dwells with the red dirt of Oklahoma, where she was raised. Growing up, she spent afternoons and weekends driving around with her grandmother and visiting family on the reservation. A black coffee in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, Spirit’s grandmother imparted life lessons through ancestral tales. “A central part of our culture is storytelling, and my grandmother turned everything into a beautiful story, big or small,” Spirit says. “I wouldn’t be the writer I am today if it weren’t for listening to her.”
On “i’ll be waiting (pug),” Spirit recounts the painful experience of losing her grandmother as a teen. “How do you live a lifetime in a night?” she asks on the chorus, remembering the final hours they spent together in the hospital. Spirit grew up on Johnny Cash and wrote the song to honor the music her family loves. The narrative is plain-spoken and arresting in its simplicity. She shares, “On my grandma’s Cherokee side of the family almost everyone has a nickname, given out of love and admiration. My grandma Nancy Sands was “pug.” When my parents were just starting off as new parents working long hours my grandma helped play a part in raising me. I went everywhere with her, she picked me up from school every day, took me for drives on the reservation often, and told me cherokee folk stories – that was our moments together. She fell suddenly ill at the end of my time in highschool and I got the call from my mom that she didn’t have much time and we’d be going to the hospital to say our goodbyes. How can I thank someone for a lifetime of love in an evening? It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done being there with her while she passed. I wrote this song about that evening – “how do you spend a lifetime in a night?”
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