Colorado's musical canon is unusually scattered. Most states have one or two cities that dominate the song count. Colorado has 127 references for Denver, plus another hundred or so spread across Boulder, Aspen, Telluride, Durango, Vail, and a long tail of mountain towns. The geography is the canon — songwriters write about specific peaks, passes, and ski towns more often than they write generic "Colorado" songs.

The whole state has 410 high-correlation references in our database — fifth place behind only Texas, California, Tennessee, and Georgia. For a state of 5.8 million people, that's a remarkable density.

The John Denver Era

You can't write about Colorado music without starting here. John Denver's catalog is essentially a Colorado tourism board operating as a discography. He didn't invent the Colorado-as-paradise song, but he made it canonical for an entire generation.

  • "Rocky Mountain High" — John Denver (1972). The state's official song. Specifically about a meteor shower in 1971 above Williams Lake.
  • "Sunshine on My Shoulders" — John Denver (1971).
  • "Aspenglow" — John Denver. Aspen's entry.
  • "Annie's Song" — John Denver. Written on a ski lift outside Aspen.
  • "Take Me Home, Country Roads" — John Denver. (Technically about West Virginia, but written in Maryland — and the Colorado claim is real because of how much John Denver did for the state.)

Denver Itself

Denver's canon is bigger than people realize. The 1970s singer-songwriter wave wrote about Denver constantly. The current generation of Americana artists has revived it.

  • "Denver" — Garth Brooks.
  • "It's a Miracle" — Barry Manilow. Denver appears in the lyrics.
  • "Long Road to Denver" — Bo DePeña.
  • "Colorado Blue" — Alela Diane.
  • "Mile High" — Jewel.
  • "Denver" — Benjah.

Boulder and the Front Range

Boulder has 24 song-references — heavy on indie folk, jam bands, and the Flatirons mythology. The Animal Collective live album from Boulder ("Banshee Beat - Live June 2, 2009 Boulder, CO") is widely considered one of their definitive releases.

  • "Boulder" — Cate Downey.
  • "Banshee Beat (Live, Boulder)" — Animal Collective.
  • "The Jacket" — Ashley McBryde. Boulder appears in the lyrics.
  • "Tumbleweed Town" — Balsam Range.

The Ski Town Canon

Aspen, Telluride, Vail, and Durango have inspired their own micro-canons, mostly Americana, country, and singer-songwriter folk.

  • "Telluride" — Tim McGraw. The most-known ski-town country song.
  • "Telluride" — Kate Wolf. The folk version.
  • "Telluride" — Leif Vollebekk. The indie-folk version.
  • "Diamond Belle" — Charley Crockett. Durango.
  • "Black Bear Road" — C.W. McCall. The Colorado high country trucker-anthem tradition.
  • "Wolf Creek Pass" — C.W. McCall. Pagosa Springs / Wolf Creek Pass — one of the most-named mountain passes in country music.
  • "Aspen" — various. Don Toliver's "NEW DROP" name-checks it; Catie Offerman's "Don't Do It In Texas" sets a verse there.

The Outsider's Colorado

Songs from artists who don't live in Colorado but use it as setting. Often the strongest songs in the canon — the high country flatters writers who arrive looking for it.

  • "Colorado" — Stephen Stills (CSN era).
  • "Colorado" — Cody Jinks.
  • "Colorado" — Ward Davis.
  • "Paul Revere" — Noah Kahan. Vail mentioned.
  • "Coyote" — Better Than Ezra. Cross-state road song.
  • "Altitude Adjustment" — Midland. Durango.

The Geography Is the Story

Colorado's canon depends on the topography in a way most state canons don't. Songs name specific passes (Wolf Creek, Loveland, Independence), specific peaks (Pikes Peak, Long's Peak), specific rivers (the Arkansas, the Colorado, the Yampa), and specific drives (I-70 west of Denver, US-160 across the southern tier). The geography is the songwriting prompt.

This is why a state of 5.8 million people produces more references than New York's 8 million does for NYC alone. Colorado has more places worth writing about per capita than almost any other state.

The Reading List

  1. "Rocky Mountain High" — John Denver (1972).
  2. "Sunshine on My Shoulders" — John Denver (1971).
  3. "Wolf Creek Pass" — C.W. McCall (1975).
  4. "Telluride" — Tim McGraw (2002).
  5. "Colorado" — Stephen Stills.
  6. "Banshee Beat (Live, Boulder)" — Animal Collective (2009).
  7. "Diamond Belle" — Charley Crockett.
  8. "Long Road to Denver" — Bo DePeña.
  9. "Aspenglow" — John Denver.
  10. "Colorado Blue" — Alela Diane.

Drop into the explore map anywhere in Colorado and the database will surface songs tied to the exact peak, pass, or town. Or browse state-level Colorado songs for the broader Mountain West canon.