An Okotoks singer/songwriter’s send-up to her hometown is up for a big city accolade.
Released in December 2022, Hanna Taylor’s Grow Young is a musical send-up of the historic Elma Street where she grew up, and the single is up for two nominations at the YYC Music Awards for Prophets of Music Emerging Artist Award and People’s Choice Award – with voting for the latter closing Aug. 7.
“It was written about Elma Street, because I grew up three or four doors down,” said Taylor during an interview sitting in the kitchen of her family’s Lineham House Galleries.
“Then it’s about me moving back to this street as an adult, and seeing it through a very different lens, watching how it’s grown.”
The song evokes imagery specific to Elma, but Taylor’s wistful lyrics will tug at the heartstrings of anyone who left behind a simpler place or time.
“People have really liked it, especially people who are familiar with that street,” Taylor said.
“Even really subtle things, like the purple flowers on the hill, those are the crocuses up on the hill, and bricks and stones, like this house made of bricks. Even down to the honeybees, because my mom used to paint children’s art, and they were all honeybees.”
Born in Ontario, her family moved to New Zealand when she was a year old, before it relocated back to Canada to live on Elma Street in 2000, when she was five years old. While the family moved up to Crystal Shores in 2005, Taylor moved back to Elma Street as an adult in 2016.
“There’s still the odd person here that remembers me with a New Zealand accent,” Taylor said, joking about her firm roots in both countries.
“Canewi, Kewadian, however you want to put it.”
More recently, Taylor released another tale of relocation on July 1 titled Hello Toronto, about a family of Syrian refugees she met a few years ago while waiting.
“It’s just about their story of moving through different parts of Canada in for eight months,” she said. “It was really slow the day that I was working and so I just sat down with them and heard about their story.
“They had only been in Canada for eight months, didn’t speak a lick of English when they showed up, but from living in Toronto, then to Trois-Rivières, then to Calgary, they could actually converse with me in both French and English.”
The song tells that story in lyrics meandering from English to French and back again tracing the family's travels through Canada.
“Just with all of our incoming refugees now, it’s still very appropriate because the same things are going on,” Taylor said.
“They had to leave and were just abruptly dropped somewhere safe, which was Canada at the time, and I was just amazed at their story, and it just shows human adaptability to these sorts of things.”
Also nominated for Blues Recording of the Year is The Prairie Dogz’ 40 Dollars.
The song is about a young man who, instead of spending his last $40 on necessities, puts it toward wooing a girl.
To vote for Taylor's Grow Young, visit yycmusicawards.com.
