The singer/songwriter told Yorkton This Week ‘Mother Nature’ is a bit different compared to most of his music.
​“This song was definitely unique from my usual writing style,” he said. “When I started creating the song, I looked at the meaning of Mother Nature and the power and strength behind those words. I knew that the lyrics could move in many different directions.
“As I continued to write, over time, I started thinking about the strain the planet is under.
“Each day when I would turn on the news, it seemed that I was hearing overwhelming climate change and global warming issues happening that seemed out of control, so the writing of the piece actually took a turn in a direction I did not expect, but I was pleased with the end results of my lyrics.”
The inspiration for the song ultimately came from today’s headlines.
“Our world is changing so quickly and we are having to adapt in ways that we have not had too before,” offered Kalmakoff.
“For some, the song could seem like a protest piece, but that was not my intention behind the writing. The lyrics almost speak of helplessness, forgiveness or a kind of prayer, yet the song seems to have an uplifting and bold strength of its own.”
Despite the song having significant meaning it came to Kalmakoff quite easily.
“​The lyrics came fairly easy to me; the music portion was a bit more of a challenge because I wrote the piece in a style I had not written before,” he explained, adding “music publicist's reviews are referring to the style of the song as folk-rock or light rock, I have never written in that genre before, but loved doing so.
“To me the song has kind of a pop feel to it.
“Still, its music style is resonating with different generations of listeners, which means the message of the piece is also hitting home for a lot of people.”
Kalmakoff said the lyrics demanded something different.
“I knew when the instrumentation was being chosen, I needed the sound to be big and bold, like Mother Nature can be,” he said. “The building of the music was a real treat and quite exciting for me, especially when it came time to lay down my lead vocal track, along with the harmony vocals before the song was complete.”
The question was how to deal with the topic in a video?
“After the music production was done, then came the decision on how to treat the message through the video, for the song,” said Kalmakoff. “I became very fortunate to have a young Vancouver film director, Alexander Sharp, referred my way to work on the music video for ‘Mother Nature’. I really felt that Alex and his team did a terrific job to help me portray the message behind the lyrics.”
​The song, ‘Mother Nature’, is the first single from my new album titled- Nature, just released.
"This album is part of the tapestry connected to my life, from my childhood in Saskatchewan to now, living on the West Coast of Canada. The people I have known along the way, the artists I have admired and the beauty of Canada, woven here, through the songs and the music,” explained Kalmakoff on his website.
The album opens with one of his new original pieces, Fly With The Wind, written about Kalmakoff’s younger self and struggle to leave home and family on the prairies to start a new and unknown life in B.C. One of his favourite lines in the song is, "Like a prairie seed, you felt the need, to fly with the wind".
As A Child, which closes the album is a ballad Ron wrote about his childhood and how through the elements of his surroundings in the prairie skies from the stars to the northern lights, he remembers his imagination as a child would run wild with ideas. The beginnings of where flight would become such an important theme in many of the past songs he has written.
Included in this latest selection of twelve songs are five covers written by other Canadian singer/songwriters- Leonard Cohen, Loreena McKennitt, Jim Cuddy, Jimmy Rankin and Michelle Creber.
"These are a few of the many Canadian artists I have admired for not only their voices, but their writing styles, as well. It was so hard to choose whose work to cover, but I wanted to pick songs where I felt I could add a different artistic layer to, as if to paint the words my own way,” he noted on his website.
The new single, ‘Mother Nature’ and the album, ‘Nature’ are both available on the artist’s website- ronkalmakoff.com On the site, anyone can purchase his latest CD or download my albums or individual songs.
