The Meaning Behind Maggie Rogers’ “Alaska,” the Majestic Song That Freaked Out Pharrell and Launched Her Career

It might seem like an unachievable dream to be a largely-unknown musician and to have your work discovered—and loved—by a major force in the music industry. That’s exactly what happened to Maggie Rogers with her song “Alaska.” Rogers was a student at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and in March 2016, she took part in a masterclass in which Pharrell Williams listened to and critiqued students’ work. Williams listened to “Alaska” and was so taken with the song that he said he had “zero, zero, zero notes for that.”

A fan of Rogers uploaded a video of the proceedings, and it went viral. Much of the conversation between Rogers and Williams centered on the song’s unique fusion of elements from folk and dance music, but Rogers put just as much care into how she crafted “Alaska”’s message, which was a highly personal one for her.

What “Alaska” Means

At its core, “Alaska” is a song about letting go. It’s a reflection of the transitional state of Rogers’ life at the time she wrote it. Not long before writing “Alaska,” Rogers had been in an artistic rut for more than two years. She was sufficiently disengaged from her aspirations to be a songwriter and performer that she enrolled in a program in Alaska where she was learning to be a guide on hiking expeditions. Rogers came to see the experience of her Alaska hikes as something that could help her to relinquish the stagnation of her recent past and move into a new phase.

In the first verse, she likens her difficulties with slogging across a cold river by foot.

I was walking through icy streams
That took my breath away
Moving slowly through westward water
Over glacial plains

In the pre-chorus that follows, Rogers uses her continuing hike across the plains, away from the water, as a metaphor for moving forward in her life, leaving her struggles behind.

And I walked off you
And I walked off an old me
Oh me oh my, I thought it was a dream
So it seemed

Rogers’ process of letting go requires her to walk away from her past, but it also involves a practice of giving herself space. The chorus is full of references to air and breathing, with her singing the following line three times: You and I, there’s air in between. In the second verse, Rogers sings Learned to talk and say / whatever I wanted to. Walking away gave her the room to find her true self.

[RELATED: Top 5 Moments from Maggie Rogers’ Summer of ’23 Tour in Nashville]

Facts About “Alaska”

When Rogers returned to New York from Alaska, she was motivated to write songs again, and “Alaska” was a product of her creative revitalization. She has said that it took her only 15 minutes to write the song. Rogers co-wrote “Alaska” with Doug Schadt, a Brooklyn-based producer and engineer. Schadt also co-wrote “Dog Years,” from Rogers’ 2017 EP, Now That the Light Is Fading, and he produced four of the EP’s five tracks.

The Impact of “Alaska”

Various clips of Williams’ masterclass have been watched by millions of viewers on YouTube. On the basis of its viral popularity, “Alaska” was released as the first of three singles from Now That the Light Is Fading. The single came out in October 2016, four months ahead of the EP, and it was subsequently included on her 2019 album, Heard It in a Past Life. “Alaska” cracked the Top 20 of Billboard’s Adult
t Rock Songs (No. 18) charts and was certified Gold in the U.S. The success of the “Alaska” single helped to catapult Heard It in a Past Life to No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The album also hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Alternative Albums chart.

While “Alaska” did not reach the Billboard Hot 100, Rogers subsequently cracked the chart with a pair of collaborations. In 2020, her cover of the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” with Phoebe Bridgers reached No. 57, and in 2023, she was the featured guest vocalist on Zach Bryan’s “Dawns,” which peaked at No. 42.

Social media may have sparked the popularity of “Alaska,” but there’s a reason why Williams was so captivated by Rogers’ song, and why music fans made it a Gold record. Rogers expressed the anguish of moving forward from a painful past eloquently and poetically, and in the end, the song is triumphant. It also doesn’t hurt that she set her heartfelt lyrics to a soundtrack that is both beautifully atmospheric and danceable.

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Glamour