Singled Out: Kylie Fox's Alberta

Kylie Fox just released her new album, "Sequoia," and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the song "Alberta". Here is the story: When I wrote the song "Alberta," I was still new to playing guitar. I had flown it out with me that summer when I worked as a tree planter for the first time. I wrote the song in my tent, and the little riff I made that exists beneath the entire song sounded to me like guard rails passing along on the highway.

The summer began in British Columbia, learning how to plant spruce and pine seedlings as fast as I could, the right distance apart, surrounded by mountains, thick woods, and black flies. Despite the strict regime of waking up at sunrise, having breakfast with the crew in the mess tent, getting driven to some barren wasteland, and planting trees for eight hours, it felt like total freedom and escape.

There's a term in the tree planting culture - "bush goggles," referring to how everyone at camp gets cuter as the days go on. At the start of the season, we basked in the beautiful BC landscape, and I landed myself a bush camp boyfriend. Soon, we moved camp to Alberta, where the vibes felt very different. Where I had met folks on road trips in BC, now we were meeting folks from away who were there to work. My bush camp boyfriend had moved on to another candidate at camp, and my friend and I were both feeling a little homesick and bigtime in the dumps.

One day, on our way back to camp from work, we saw a billboard for a rodeo. We borrowed a car and set out to find it. After driving forever it seemed, I pulled into a campground tavern to ask if it was worth driving any farther. Judy was behind the bar, no teeth and eating a creamsicle. She sat us down, well beyond when the bar should have closed, telling us her version of the meaning of life. She told us that the trick to living is to learn to forgive, and that we could only become a butterfly if we found our cocoon.

We left feeling enlightened, but we never found the rodeo. I wrote the song that week, and it remains one of my favorite and transports me back there every time. It's about forgiveness.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

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