Acclaimed Toronto singer-songwriter Julian Taylor and his band are sharing the initial version of his powerful 2022 single release, “Seeds,” taken from his most recent album, Beyond the Reservoir.

“Seeds” stands for “Somehow, Everyone, Eventually, Dreams, Someday.” 

The song’s lyrics were initially taken from a text message which Taylor received from his cousin Ajika in 2021 on the morning after Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that 215 uncovered remains of buried Indigenous children were discovered at a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia.  

Reflecting on the 2020 murder of George Floyd along with the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples, Ajika wrote “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”

The upbeat and assertive full band approach to this roots and Americana song you hear today was recorded at the Canterbury Music Company in Toronto “smack dab in the middle of the pandemic,” explains Taylor, who worked with co-producer Saam Hashemi, Derek Downham, and bassist Anna Ruddick, who was eight months pregnant at the time. 

“I think that her being so close to giving birth really gave it a life that sounds urgent and powerful.”