Redwood Tree
by Cam

Album: The Otherside (2020)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Except for the bristlecone pine, redwood trees are the oldest of living trees, and some specimens are known to have thousands of years. The oldest living redwood, The President, located in California's Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, is estimated to be about 3,200 years old.

    Here, Cam reflects on the bittersweet passage of time, comparing the forward motion of her life to the static redwood tree. "It's a song about time, and whatever way you spend it still feels just like a blink to a redwood tree," she explained.
  • Cam's inspiration for the dreamy song was a climbing tree that grew in her backyard when she was a child. Since then she has moved on, but that old favorite tree remains as a comforting reminder of simpler times. "I spent so many afternoons up there as a kid looking out and dreaming about the future," Cam reflected. "It feels like I've lived five lifetimes since then - I've done more than I can even remember, but still part of me wishes I could've stayed put, and to have that time at home."
  • Cam wrote the song with her guitarist Anders Mouridsen and regular songwriting partner Tyler Johnson, who also produced the track.
  • The stop-motion animated video, centered around a redwood tree, features different life scenarios that Cam has been through.
  • Cam told MTV News she had watched the 2016 sci-fi movie Arrival around the time they wrote this song. She was captivated by the idea explored in the film "that you can't be in two places at once and [that] you spending the limited time you have the way you want to spend it."

    She added in an Apple music track by track that "the soundtrack has these voices that go 'Da, da, da, da,' and we nod to that in the production."

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