Like a good neighbor

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It's kind of interesting that both Indiana and Illinois sit next to each other in an alphabetical list of the United States, since they also sit right next to each other geographically as well. Living in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana are like our good neighbors to the south that we drive through, but never really visit. Of course, that isn't true if you have family or friends that live in one of those states, but more often than not, the only reason you go through them is because you are on your way to somewhere else.

In fact, it's more likely that people from those states come up to Michigan than people from Michigan actually go down to those states. I saw a funny meme a while ago that said something like "Michigan, because nobody buys a summer home in Ohio". It's true too, the west coasts of Michigan is littered with lake homes owned by folks from the Chicago area.

Given the fact that last week we talked about Illinois, that means this week we are heading to Indiana on our musical roadtrip of the US. This is part of the #threetunetuesday series sponsored by @ablaze. You should feel free to join in if you are looking for something to post about on a random Tuesday.

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My sister and her husband used to live in Indianapolis and my oldest nephew still calls Indy home. I've visited there several times in my life for any number of reasons. More often than not, my previous statement holds true, I'm usually driving through the state to get to Kentucky or Tennessee, but I would love to get the chance to explore a bit more of the state one day. Rumor has it there are some forested areas West of Indy that have some nice elevations and pretty cool hiking trails.

I'm sure @dbooster will find this amusing... I was down in Ohio last weekend visiting my niece and her daughter and we got in an argument about how far Fort Wayne was from Indianapolis. She said it was a two hour drive and I said no way. I've made the drive several times (though not recently), and as far as I could remember it wasn't that far of a drive. So we pulled up Google Maps, and it turns out she was right. To be fair, she has a friend who attends college in Fort Wayne, so she has likely visited and made the drive down to the big city more times than me. I conceded defeat and moved on. I swear I have made that drive in less time though...

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So as soon as I saw Indiana was the theme for this week, I knew that I was going to be sharing this classic song by R Dean Taylor. Oddly enough, Taylor is actually from Canada I think I read, so whatever he was doing in Indiana that he is now a wanted man must have been a pretty big international incident.

I remember the song "Indiana Wants Me" from when I was a kid. I always kind of wondered if there was a double meaning for the song like maybe it wasn't just the state, but there was a woman who lived in Indiana and he wanted to see her, but couldn't go back. The lyrics make it pretty clear that he hurt or killed man for something he said about the lady in question. Plus, there are some sirens in the background at the end of the song and police talking over a loudspeaker.

Either way, it's a pretty cool song and it brings back some nostalgia for me. I grew up listening to this kind of music on the oldies station as a kid, so anytime I hear these songs, it's always a bit of a uplift for my soul.

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This is probably one of the most obscure songs I will ever share here. If you are lucky enough to have heard of Rich Mullins, you should consider yourself blessed. He was a Christian artist who saw a pretty legitimate amount of success in the Contemporary Christian Music scene. Unfortunately, he passed away at 41 years old in a very bad car accident in 1997. He is actually a native of Indiana growing up in Richmond, and if you listen very closely to "First Family", you can hear him make a reference to Indiana clay.

Personally, this isn't may favorite song of his, but it fits the parameters for this post, so that's why I threw it in. If you really want to hear a moving song and you like his voice, you should check out "What Susan Said", that song is absolutely amazing and pulls at my heart strings pretty much every time I hear it.

Despite his sort of short career, there is actually a lot of material out there that Mullins recorded, so if you get that chance, I encourage you to dig into it.

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Indiana was actually one of the more easy states to use for this series. Despite the fact that it is just kind of tucked away in the semi middle of the country, it seems to have made its way to a lot of songs. I had a ton of material to choose from for this one and it was actually kind of hard to pick just three songs. There were a couple songs by some female artists I have never heard of before that I was curious to dig into, but I ultimately decided to end with the iconic and incomparable Billy Joel.

My wife and I are still a bit salty that his tour got cancelled a couple years ago and we didn't get the chance to see him live. We were really looking forward to that. After watching this video I almost wish we had seen him when he was younger. Don't get me wrong, he is still great, but I think there was a period where he was just absolute fire and anything outside of that is just kind of trying to keep lightning in a bottle if you know what I mean.

If you listen closely, there is a section of the song where he lists off a couple of state names including Pennsylvania, California, and of course Indiana.

So there you go. Another state down in our musical road trip of the United States. What's your favorite Indiana song? Let me know in the comments!

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