Cross Country

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A couple years ago my wife and I made a road trip out to Colorado. I feel like I keep bringing this up over and over again here on HIVE, but the fact is, it was an amazing trip. I'll probably be talking about it for decades to come, so just get used to it. Instead of doing the whole flying thing (which I pretty much hate anymore), we decided to make the drive and stretch it into a three day journey there and back.

On the way out, we made our way across I-80 through the tip of Indiana into Illinois, then Iowa and finally Nebraska before ending up in Colorado. The first leg of our trip took us to the Quad Cities just across the Mississippi in Iowa. We got into town a little before dinner, so we decided to hit up a local metro park and take a little stroll around the grounds after having been in the car for most of the day.

The photos in this post are from that walk.

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So in case you haven't guessed, the state this week is Iowa for the #threetunetuesday post sponsored by @ablaze. Just as a recap, I have been working my way through the states in the United States in alphabetical order and taking three songs that has the name of the state in either the title or lyrics. It can't just be a place in the state. It has to actually be the name of the state. I've actually caused myself a lot of issues being so strict, but I didn't want to make it too easy for myself.

The songs I picked this week are actually pretty obscure for the most part, but I hope you enjoy them. I had a lot of fun gathering them and on one of them I even took a pretty deep dive into some other songs after watching the one I am going to share.

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Direct Link

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I know, I know, you are probably wondering what a song titled "Sweet Home Chicago" has to do with Iowa, but if you listen really closely, you will see that there is a reference to Iowa in the song. It might be kind of hard to hear because blues legend Robert Johnson has a very distinct way of singing and delivering the song. I can honestly say I have never heard this song before. In fact, I haven't spent a lot of time listening to the blues. I am more of a jazz guy, but that doesn't mean I don't like the blues. It just isn't something I listen to a lot.

I'm working on changing that and honestly, there probably isn't a better way to do that than taking a deep dive into Robert Johnson. Legend has it that Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a Mississippi crossroads to learn mastery of the guitar. Sadly, he is another one of those great artists that died at the age of 27 which I think lends to the notion that really talented people seem to pass at that age and there may be some kind of occult reason for it.

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Direct Link

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The second song comes from the iconic band the Yardbirds. I mean, how can you not love a song called "Psycho Daisies". It's actually a pretty hard song for the time if you really look at it, but that also doesn't surprise me given the fact that something like half of the Yardbirds went on to become Led Zepplin. This song has kind of a punk rock feel to it as well with the kind of slow parts breaking into the aggressive faster chords.

Once again, you have to listen really closely to hear the reference to Iowa, but I promise, it is there.

Actually, as you listen to this song, it's not too hard to hear some similarities to the songs that would come from that great band after the Yardbirds.

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Direct Link

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Finally, we have a great song from the musical "The Music Man" called "Iowa Stubborn". It takes a little bit to get into it because it is a musical after all, but once you do, it turns out to be a funny song about the small town that Professor Harold Hill finds himself in.

If you aren't familiar with the show, it is about a con man who finds himself in a small town and works out a way to get some money from the townsfolk to start a marching band. If I remember right the idea is he gets them to put up all this money for instruments, but then plans to take off with it. The problem is, he falls in love with the music teacher from the town, and as you can imagine, singing and dancing ensues.

Robert Preston is pretty awesome in this show and it's probably one of my favorites of his besides The Last StarFighter. It's a fantastic movie, but I don't think it has anything to do with Iowa.

Anyway, there you go, those are you songs about Iowa for this week. Next week we leave the "I"'s behind and head into the "K"'s. I hope you are ready!

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced