Songfacts®:

• For many, Alaska offers a fresh start, with lots of room to roam and little chance of being recognized. Shawn Mullins really was going to Alaska when he wrote the song, which finds him imagining a place where there "ain't no rats to race" and "a song is still a song." He wrote the lyric on the plane as he was headed there in 2005 for the first time to play some shows.
  
  "When you're traveling you get inspired about what's to come and what you're going to be doing and that freedom of going into a wild, wild place like that," Mullins told Songfacts. Anchorage and Juneau are both towns that have got a wildness about them that I didn't even know really, but I expected it to be that way and it was."
  
  "It seems like a lot of people are there because they're running from something in their past, and that's what I got from it," he added. "I don't think that's always the case but I know I met some folks like that."
• The line, "I'm headed to Alaska where Michelle's friend was anchored down" is a reference to the 1988 Michelle Shocked song "Anchorage," where she sings about being "anchored down in Anchorage."
• Mullins is best known for his 1998 hit "Lullaby," which came after years of toil as an independent artist. He released his next album in 2000, then teamed up with Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge to form a band called The Thorns. They released an album in 2003, but it underperformed and they went their separate ways. Mullins' next album was 9th Ward Pickin Parlor in 2006, which includes "Talkin' Goin' To Alaska Blues." Much of it was recorded in The Pickin' Parlor studio in New Orleans, owned by Mike West, who plays various instruments on many of the tracks. After Mullins recorded there in 2005, the studio was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; he titled the album after the studio in tribute.
• Mullins' first Alaska gig was at Chilkoot Charlie's (Koot's), where just about every act that swings through Anchorage performs. He then moved on to Juneau, where a lot of tourists embark from cruise ships, but Mullins' crowd was locals. Both places could get rather rowdy, but were very attentive during his shows.