New York, NY (Top40 Charts) "5000 Candles" is the story of an unexpected love for people, place, and industry. Through the song's playful and affectionate lyrics, singer-songwriter Alma Cook humanizes the North Dakota oilfield and invites Americans into parts of the country that are typically unnoticed and unappreciated.
A city kid by birth and a musician by trade, Alma is one of many accidental entrepreneurs in the Bakken oil patch. When she first visited Williston, the epicenter of the Bakken, to take odd jobs at a friend's company after college, she didn't know the difference between a drilling rig and a cell phone tower - something many Americans can relate to! Little by little, she fell in love with the industry, building unlikely friendships and learning that many of her preconceptions about oil and gas were unfounded.
"5000 Candles" was born along the way. Flying into Williston late one night, Alma was struck by a sight that North Dakota locals are all too familiar with: a landscape dotted with hundreds of flickering natural gas flares. She put a pen to paper and tried to capture the beauty she saw—not just the beauty of the glowing landscape, which was a vivid representation of America's energy dominance, but of the often-maligned oil and gas industry itself. "We don't think enough about the beauty we make," sings Alma in the second verse.
The new music video, also released today, features dawn-to-dusk footage of the Bakken oilfield as well as many faces of hardworking locals. At a time when global energy supply is under geopolitical threat, Alma sings of the oilfield, "We'll let the world judge what they don't know," reminding us that the men and women of the energy industry are to be cherished and honored. Their efforts make our lives better and more comfortable.
Alma owns Cook Compliance Solutions, a boutique advisory firm that advises oilfield contractors about safety compliance and supply chain challenges.
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