Unlike some of the other states that I have written about in this series, Colorado is one state that I am pretty familiar with. The first two times I visited the state I was in high school or just out of high school and I went with a church group, so our freedom to roam and explore was pretty non-existent.
However, my most recent trip to the state was quite a bit different from the previous two. Much older and much wiser, I was able to drive and go pretty much anywhere I wanted to. I've written plenty of posts about it already, just know it was a glorious trip and I can't wait to get back to Colorado one day.
Believe it or not, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be to come up with three songs for my #threetunetuesday post sponsored by 
I thought this one was going to be a cake walk, surely there are a ton of songs out there that reference Colorado, but oddly enough, not as many that actually mention it by name. Sure, there are tons that allude to the mountains or Denver, or some other small mining/skiing town, but not so many that simply say Colorado.
Likewise, if you do a Google search, there are a ton of bands that come from the Denver area and while they might reference life in Colorado, they don't specifically say Colorado in the title or lyrics.
That being said, I was able to come up with three songs that I am going to share with you today.
Of course I had to include this iconic song by John Denver. It's actually interesting because as you listen to it, this song is more specifically about the Rocky Mountains, it's only the fact that he sings "Colorado" in the background of the chorus that I was able to include it in this post.
That aside, it would have been a mortal sin had I left it out of this post. John is pretty much synonymous with the the state of Colorado and if his wildlife sanctuary had been closer to where we were staying in Denver I would have tried to visit. Unfortunately, it was a three hour drive away and no one else from our group was as interested in visiting it as I was.
Perhaps I will have to add that to the list for my next trip to Colorado. Fun fact, this song is the state song of Colorado. I'm sure that probably wasn't too hard to figure out though!
I'll be the first to admit, that I am not familiar with a lot of Townes Van Zandt's stuff. I know the song "Pancho and Lefty" that Willie and Merle did a fantastic version of, but other than that, I have never really dug into his catalog. I also know that he was a pretty iconic singer and songwriter and any person in Nashville who considers themselves a "storyteller" will probably list Van Zandt was one of their inspirations.
You might also remember the movie Country Strong that came out a while ago. It starred Tim McGraw, Gwenyth Paltrow, and some other folks, and Townes Van Zandt was referenced more than a couple times in the dialogue.
I probably won't get to it this week with the Christmas holiday cutting my work week short, but I promise you, I will be dedicating a listening day to Townes at some point in the future.
Finally, I am going to leave you with a song simply called "Colorado" by Linda Ronstadt. Ronstadt is honestly one of my favorite female artists from that period of time. She has some amazing country/pop songs from the 70's that have crazy good hooks and amazing melodies. Plus she has a pretty fantastic voice that allows her to handle each of those genres with little to no difficulty.
If you really get into Linda, you should also check out her Spanish stuff. She has a quite a bit in her catalog including at least one full album that is all in Spanish. It's actually interesting, because when my wife and I were in Denver a couple summers ago we were surprised to see how large and prevalent the Latin culture is in that city.
I'm actually sad I didn't go to more taco joints while we were out there because the one that we did go to was fantastic and that was more a stop of opportunity not because we were looking for the best tacos in Denver.
I guess I just need to add that to my list for next time as well!
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