Emma Swift - The Resurrection Game (2025) Hi-Res

Well, yes, it is starting to look very much like Tracks is becoming “Favourite Artists” this week, and heck, why not? Especially when it means featuring songs as fine as this one, the title track to Emma Swift’s first album of self-written material. There’s a dreamy aspect to the music and an emotionally exploratory flavor to the lyrics. And that’s no real surprise either, as Emma Swift explains: “This is a song about love and loss, about how there’s no escaping grief, it comes for us all, about how the more we love, the more we have to lose. I wrote it after attending an experiential therapy retreat in Northern California called the Hoffman Process. I went to Hoffman because I’d been feeling stuck, and my friend Sarah recommended it to me. It’s a bit of a hippy thing to do, but I’m a bit of a hippy at heart. I’m not sure if this kind of retreat is for everyone, but it did help me unearth some complicated feelings, particularly around the way I was brought up, and the inherited beliefs and patterns I was carrying around unconsciously. Naturally, these feelings started to become songs…“In Calistoga / Where the redwoods grow / I’ve come to/ To excavate your bones…”

Redwood trees are towering beauties, ancient and resilient. They are the tallest trees on earth, and can live for thousands of years. The Scottish naturalist, John Muir described them as the cathedrals of nature. I like that. One of the reasons they grow so tall is because they’re able to move and bend with the wind. I learned a lot just by being near them. Mostly about my own flickering life, how small it is in comparison.”