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For Tamara Lebak, "Dear Oklahoma" is more than a song. It is a gift.

"I'm not sure I would have done this whole project if it weren't for that song," said Lebak, the associate minister at All Souls Unitarian Church. "But now I feel I need to

The song in question is "Dear Oklahoma," which also is the title of Lebak's first album, which she will launch with an event Friday at the church, 2952 S. Peoria Ave.

Set to a dobro-and-acoustic-guitar accompaniment supplied by Jared Tyler and Pat Humphries, the song begins with begins with lyrics that gently tweak the words of the state song, goes on to say how Oklahoma "made me who I am," and adding how "we pray beneath the same blue sky/Watch tornadoes pass us by."

Then comes the final line of the chorus: "Can you love me/If I love her, dear Oklahoma?"

"This song really has its own story," Lebak said. "One of the things I try to do, that comes out of my own sense of social justice and wanting to change things for the better, is to find those things I have in common with those who might disagree with me.