Instructions for Songs of the States and Provinces

The goal of the Songs of the States/Provinces is to list for each state in the United States and each Canadian province at least one song from the realm of country or folk music. If your state/province is not represented, please provide me with urgently needed input; if you have suggestions for other states/provinces, please speak; if you want to express preferences, please e-mail me. Before mailing your titles, please check out these instructions to find out what I mean by songs about states/provinces.

For Rhode Island, for example, I can only remember C.W. McCall's "Wolf Creek Pass" (Colorado), where his load included some clucking Rhode Island reds. I trust that such flaws in my cultural literacy can be filled by natives of the respective states/provinces and other music fans.

I have seen various queries posted in RMCW on such topics as sad songs and dad songs. Folks are quick to come up with quite a respectable list of songs on almost any subject you can imagine.

Now here is a challenge: I want to collect the titles -- and, eventually, the recordings -- of country/folk music songs about each of the 50 states and D.C. as well as the 11 Canadian provinces.

I am requesting that you send your reactions/suggestions/nominations to me directly per e-mail. I will maintain an update of the list of songs to reflect deletions and additions. Please send your suggestions in concise form--don't make me plow through my whole file to see what the differences might be.

On the other hand, if you feel a need to get on my case about my hare-brained nominations, feel free to post away to RMCW or (preferably to choking the bandwidth) bombard me with flames, raves and hate mail.

BTW, please include where you are from and where you live now. This could be an interesting insight into how folks come to this music.

Specifications

Now this task requires some definitions. First of all, the songs do not by any means have to be the official state/province song, but that status dose not disqualify a song, either (see Tennessee below). On the other hand, Louisiana's state song is "You Are My Sunshine". Why? Because their singing governor wrote it. Although this is the official state song, it is not what I had in mind!

What is or is not country music could provide fuel for a lot of flaming. Especially given what Nashville (e.g., Garth, Headhunters) is marketing as country music now, I do not want to get bogged down in definitions and prefer to keep an open mind. At the other end of the spectrum, I do not want to preclude roots music that some might prefer to call folksy rather than (modern) country, or bluegrass, or old-time, etc. In short, I simply prefer to exclude what is clearly jazz, Broadway (e.g., "Shenandoah" for Virginia), rock ("Sweet Home Alabama"), etc.

Also, please no instrumentals (e.g., "Kentucky" (Davis/Taylor), "My Louisiana" (Graves/Baker)).

Please e-mail suggestions directly to me. Do not unnecessarily burden the RMCW newsgroup. I will maintain the Web list of the states/provinces and the songs, including the states/provinces that remain without a song.

Now one important point remains to be clarified: what do I mean by a state/province song? Let us take the example of Texas, probably the most prolific source of songs that at least mention a state/province's name. Examples of songs that are not ABOUT Texas, but only allude to the state/province or a city therein are:

• "Yellow Rose of Texas"
• "Blue Yodel (T for Texas)"
• "Who Put All My Exes in Texas?"
• "Texas in My Rearview Mirror"
• "San Antonio Rose"
• "Waltz across Texas"
• "Take Me Back to Texas (I'm too Young to Marry)"
• "Coca Cola Cowboy" ('You walked across my heart like it was Texas')
• "My First Taste of Texas"

In this context, I also choose to omit songs like the following:

• Tim Hardin's "Here's to the State of Mississippi" (Phil Ochs, There But for Fortune, Elektra 960832-2)

• Peter La Farge's "Alaska" (On the Warpath /As Long as the Grass Shall Grow, Bear BCD 15626)

• Neil Young's "Alabam" (and hence Lynnyrd Skynnyrd's (pardon my spelling) reply, "Sweet Home Alabama", which I also consider to be suthun rock)

In addition, I want to avoid distasteful songs such as "As We Go Marching through Georgia", (square dance melody with numerous sources including Bob Dalcemer's When the Work's All Done, Traditional Caller Products TC 125). Since the song alludes to Sherman's devastating march through Georgia, which included the burning of Atlanta.

What do I do with songs like "Oklahoma Hills" (Jack Guthrie), which might qualify in every other respect, but that I just don't like?? I could include it in the listing by state/province, and exclude it from my collection of recordings. Fair?

BTW, please be sure to give sources (CD) whenever possible. I want to collect the recordings along the way, and perhaps other folks will be interested too. Since I also list some songs below whose sources I do not have at my fingertips, please also e-mail me any lacking information or other noteworthy versions.

I will also gladly credit you for your contributions. If you do not want to be listed, please say so.

Many thanks for your support!

Bob Bach