‘The Ridge‘ is a poetic description of nothing less than a personal idyll, which Canadian Julian Taylor has described as his “happy place“. It’s a song that is evocative of the open spaces of Canada that follows in the exalted steps of the likes of Gordon Lightfoot. The rural beauty that is painted in detail on ‘The Ridge‘ was in reality his grandparent’s farm in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, which was bounded by the Golden Ears Provincial Park, as well as the Fraser and Alouette Rivers.
Really there’s no more to say about the wellspring for this song than that which Julian Taylor has provided by way of an explanation. “I wrote ‘The Ridge’ to contemplate what life was like back in my grandparents’ day and what life is like now. My grandfather was Mohawk and my step-grandmother cared for me like her own. She was quite brave to take that on because there was a lot of prejudice back then, which still exists today. This song is my way of pointing out the importance of innocence in a world that is divided. ‘The Ridge’ was produced by myself and my friend Saam Hashemi. We recorded at the Woodshed in Toronto with my cousins Gene and Barry from the Kahnawake Reserve. We jam every summer at the reserve’s annual powwow and I wanted to capture that energy on this track. I am an Indigenous person of colour and someone who grew up in a predominantly white environment. I never felt that I was Indigenous enough to be accepted into that culture and I never felt like I was black enough to be accepted into that culture. I am also not white.“
