Kathleen Edwards - Crawling Back to You [Tom Petty]
Choosing a Tom Petty song for a covers record felt like a no-brainer. His music is filled with infinite possibilities. But for me, Wildflowers was the obvious choice. That album has always moved me deeply—it came into my life at a time when I was discovering music in a way that left a lasting impact.
It came out during the last year of my canoe camp days. I used to go to a camp in Temagami, Ontario, every summer starting when I was 12. It was an incredible place—no running water in the cabins, outhouses, and a big dining hall that was the only building with plumbing. Every year, we’d go on canoe trips, and as you got older, the trips got longer. By the time I was 17, we were doing a 60-day expedition, paddling from just outside Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories all the way to the Arctic Circle, finishing on the Copper Mine River.
That trip was intense. We had a couple of food drops, portaged alongside caribou migration trails, ate meals in bug jackets, and sometimes had to carry our canoes for days because the water had dried up. One night, a bear even breathed through my tent wall.
When the trip was finally over, we returned to Yellowknife to pick up the small bags we’d left behind. In mine? My Discman and Wildflowers. I’ll never forget putting on my headphones and listening to that album start to finish. After two months away from music, it felt like a religious experience—a euphoria I can't quite describe.
That memory made covering a Tom Petty song feel like the perfect choice. My friend Matt Sucich, who’s been touring with me, and I had already performed a Petty song together before this record, and singing it with him was pure joy. It brought everything full circle.