Victorian singer-songwriter Ally Paterson digs deep on her evocative new single ‘Dig’, out today. The track follows her previous release ‘ Prairie Hotel Parachilna’, a John Williamson cover that struck a chord with country audiences around the nation. The single climbed to #2 on the Australian Country Radio chart and remained in the Top 10 for four consecutive weeks, introducing listeners to Ally’s distinctly Australian storytelling style – rustic, poetic and deeply grounded in place.
Yet long before she was writing songs in paddocks beneath the southern stars, she traded comfort for calling, bought sheep and dove headfirst into farming life with little more than determination and faith that she’d figure it out along the way.
That same spirit runs through Ally’s haunting new single. ‘Dig’ is an earthy, cinematic release inspired by the grit and independence of Australia’s gold-rush miners, and the restless courage required to build a life from the ground up.
“I was inspired by the gold-rush miners who travelled across the world to try and make a go of it, even when success wasn’t guaranteed” says the singer-songwriter. “The song came to me when I was at Sovereign Hill, a historical gold-fields site and replica of a gold-rush town – imagining what it would have been like to be a miner from the other side of the world, in a harsh landscape with growing unrest, big corporations and regulations moving in with increasing corruption…what it would have been like to keep on digging, being independent and free.”
Produced by multi award-winning Matt Fell ( Troy Cassar-Daley, Shane Nicholson, Fanny Lumsden) the track leans into rich textures of Australian folk and alt-country, forming the perfect backdrop to Ally’s imagery of creek beds, hard earth, rain-soaked plains and men chasing fortune beneath harsh skies. It’s an epic tale, both haunting and hopeful.
“The song is about digging your heels down and not giving in to the comforts of indolence, that real wealth and value is in the strength of character that is required to go out on your adventure, come what may,” Ally says. “It is a song for the adventurous.”
That philosophy is one Ally knows intimately. In 2020, she and her husband James began farming cattle before relocating their young family from Melbourne to a sheep property south of Ballarat. Neither came from generations of farming families but together they learned the trade from the ground up – often the hard way.
“People often find our journey into farming an interesting story,” Ally explains. “James was a carpenter and I was keeping books and having kids in Melbourne, and we decided to become farmers, bought a bunch of sheep and leased a sheep farm south of Ballarat. We dove in the deep end and learned on the job! Five years later, we bought some paddocks, then a house, James learned how to shear sheep, and we are WELL past the point of no return.”
The idea of contributing to Australia’s rich agricultural history fuels Ally’s drive to stay the course. “I feel extremely fortunate to be able to take part in something that has been such a big part of Australia’s history, and to glean from people who have been doing it for generations. It has been a remarkable adventure, incredibly difficult at times but the most rewarding and fulfilling thing we could have done.”
That quiet defiance is woven through ‘Dig’ – part bush ballad, part rallying cry. Driven by pounding rhythms, earthy instrumentation and Ally’s evocative vocal delivery, ‘ Dig’ paints a portrait of people willing to endure uncertainty in pursuit of something real. With it, Ally Paterson proves she’s an artist unafraid to dig beneath the surface in search of songs with substance, soul and hard-earned truth.
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