Story Behind the Song: Colorado Song

Colorado Song

Full Disclosure:  I don’t know the song, “Rocky Mountain High,” by John Denver.  It’s not because I don’t like John Denver, don’t get me wrong… I just don’t listen to him that often.   At my live shows, I often offer up “Colorado Song” as a song to counter the request of “Rocky Mountain High.”  I am painfully aware of the blasphemy of living smack-dab in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, high in Silverton, Colorado, and being a working musician who doesn’t play Rocky Mountain High.  I’ve grown used to the look of confusion and occasional disgust on someone’s face when I turn down their request, citing my inability to play it.  I shrug and say, “But I do have an original song about the same kinda thing, if you want to hear it….?”  They usually shrug and figure it can’t be worse than anything else, so I play it.  (Check out the full set of lyrics here!)

In November 2008, I was on a two or three week trip to Puerto Rico.  I was a very reluctant traveler, especially back then.  The farthest I had been from home was Hawaii, but I had never left the official United States. Puerto Rico seemed like a good compromise between Central America where my traveling companion really wanted to go, and staying home, where I really wanted to go.  Plus, I didn’t have a passport at the time, so Puerto Rico seemed like the only way to get the culture he was craving and the relative security I was craving.  Though traveling so far away from home was daunting to me, I was almost fluent in Spanish and the beach life sounded nice after a long season playing piano, so I agreed to go.  It’ll be fun, traveling companion said.  It’ll be an adventure, he said.  It’ll expand our horizons, he said.  I’m probably going to get food poisoning, I said.  The mosquitoes are the size of hummingbirds there, I’m sure, I said.  I’m going to miss Thanksgiving Dinner with my family, I said.  Anyway, we went to Puerto Rico.  He surfed, so he was taking advantage of the surfing on a beach outside of Rincon.  I couldn’t surf or really swim, so I was enjoying some downtime on the beach while he surfed.  I didn’t mind being alone on the beach– it was nice.  The sand was white and cool against my feet, the locals were laid-back and friendly.  Though I was in no way blending in with the locals (hello, living in Silverton, CO at 9318 feet above sea level where it sometimes snows in July and having so few opportunities to cultivate a tan), I enjoyed chatting with them and practicing my Spanish.  Also, for the record, I am so glad I went because I got to see the bioluminescent bays.  That was by far the highlight of the trip, and made a place called Mosquito Bay seem infinitely more magical.  If you’ve never seen them, get a move on, because pollution is killing the little bugs that glow when they move and they might not be like this forever.  Here’s a video about it, in case you’ve never heard of this before.

On one particular afternoon, I had grown bored of sitting on the beach.  Side note– this was before I owned a smart phone, so I had a book, a few crossword puzzles, and a can-do attitude, but after awhile, I just got bored.  I know you might disagree with me, but for this mountain girl, there’s only so many hours I can spend sitting on a beach, chasing the shade of a mango tree, staring out at the flat horizon, thinking about how nice it would be to take in a big lung full of dry mountain air, to see mountains and not a flat horizon, to hike somewhere that I knew I couldn’t get lost, to be wrapped up in the canyons like a hug from the rocks, trees, and streams.  I looooonged to see the stars.  I looooonged to be cold, just for a minute or two.  I wanted to be nowhere other than home, in Colorado.

I didn’t finish the song in Puerto Rico.  I had only the first couple of verses and the first chorus.  A year later, I found myself in Istanbul, Turkey, following the same traveling companion across continents.  When I saw the bustle of the city, and the traffic (turns out that the number of lanes painted on pavement have little to do with the number of cars that will occupy that space), I had the second verse.  We spent New Year’s Day 2010 in a mall in Istanbul, watching the movie “Avatar” in 3D.  I had many moments that day when I couldn’t believe I was across the world from my home, trying to find a sense of normalcy in a totally foreign environment.  Everywhere we went, even in the easily-navigated public transportation systems, all I could see were the cars, the traffic backed up, the smog.  I just wanted to be home.  In the production phase of this song, Scott Smith, the recording engineer and producer at Scooter’s Place Studio in Durango suggested we go with a relatively busy classical guitar sound, to mimic the busy feeling of a big city.  Coupled with some percussion stops and halted rhythms, I think we achieved our desired outcome.

Here I am, in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, 2009.

I went home in January 2010, and found new off-shoots to the deep roots I already have here in Colorado.  With even more conviction, I decided that I would be calling Colorado home indefinitely.  Upon returning, I stepped off the plane and thought, “The air is so clear, I just love it here…” and I had my last verse.

I’m really grateful for all of my travel experiences, good and bad.  In 2015, I went to India with a different traveling companion, and we were in a major bus crash.  I had a concussion, some stitches to keep my ear attached to my head, some bumps and bruises, and a cringe-worthy black eye.  Other passengers died that night, but I walked away relatively okay, due to sheer luck and some quick thinking on the part of my traveling companion.  When I flew home about a week later, first to New Jersey, then Denver, then Durango, I had my Colorado Song stuck in my head.  From the approach into Newark, the straight lines of street lights in NJ never looked so good compared to the circular and tangled streets of Mumbai (I only saw one stoplight there the whole time, and it was right outside of the international airport).  Everything I’ve experienced, especially while traveling outside of my comfort zone, has made me a better storyteller, a better songwriter.  Crazy things happen when you’re not comfortable, and often lead to some of my best song ideas.  But for the sake of the song and the sake of my sanity, I will forever call Colorado home.

It looked worse than it was, but it was definitely a conversation piece. India, November 2015.

Whenever I sing the Colorado Song now, I think of all the places I have been, all the places I will go, and all the adventures, magic, food poisoning, bus crashes, and other misadventures I’ll get into.  I’m not afraid of those, but they sure do make this beautiful life here look pretty good.  Last month, I was able to go backpacking with my dad.  We caught 16-inch cut-throat trout and ate one cooked over a campfire, reminiscing about different trips into the wilderness we’ve made.  I will relish those memories of campfires and stargazing, feeling so lucky to have lived here, now, with people I love.  I always tell people I won the lottery because I’m lucky enough to live where I want to live, do what I love for a living, and have enough time to enjoy both.

See you next Thursday, with a story about Junk Town… It’s not nearly as traumatic as this one!  Stay tuned….

-Lace

p.s.  Colorado Song is available right now for download on itunes and all other major digital platforms by searching “Lacey Black + All These Years + Colorado Song”  If you want it on the full album with 9 other songs, click here.