Goin' Up To Leadville

I cringe a bit at how I arranged this recording, making it way too long trying to cram in all the lyrical content.  It had potential, but I sort of wrecked it by not editing enough.  Put another way, it wouldn't make it onto a "best of" album.  Surprisingly, this one has been somewhat popular, probably from people who live there or who have at least been there.  A place-in-the-title song has that advantage in today's online music search world.

This one had some interesting stuff behind it though.  One thing is that I used to live near Leadville, Colorado.  I had visited there a lot during that time, and was fascinated with the place.  It is a beautiful flat valley area high in the Rocky mountains, has several lakes, and is surrounded by giant mountains.  It was said to be the highest incorporated city in America, and was supposedly once the capital of CO.  A lot of establishments there use this fact in their advertising, such as "highest golf course in America."  Highest everything, including a play on meaning when the students at the college there boasted to be the "highest college students in America."  

It takes on deeper meaning now that recreational marijuana use is legal there.  My song, however, is about the natural high you get from skiing in deep powder snow.  You get addicted to it like a drug and crave it once you experience it and learn to do it.  Especially someone like me from Michigan who grew up skiing on ice-covered 200 ft. vertical hills, it was amazing and particularly euphoric when I learned to ski powder.  In a way, it is central to the appeal of the place, and becomes the ski bum's religion, powder skiing.  

So, the song then is fictional otherwise, as I made it be about someone like me who missed that feeling and because of a failed relationship with his woman, wanted to leave her and return to a place like Leadville where he could get his powder fix again.  In reality, the one ski area right in Leadville is sort of lame compared to the nearby resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, and Copper Mtn., and otherwise the off-piste stuff is awesome but you have to hike and use skins and have all this equipment, so it's mostly for telemarkers and fitness fanatics, which is not appealing to people like me.  But hey, makes for a good song.  

Another thing about the place is the 10th mountain division had a ski trooper training camp near there, and yet another is that they hold fitness freak triathlon-type events there due to the challenges associated with high altitude.  So I threw references in for some of the general facts about the place, but it's a breakup song - guy threatening to leave girl to go skiing to feel good again.  Then as far as style goes, bluegrass is big up in those parts, or at least it was back in the early 90s when I lived in Vail, so that's why I attempted to go with music that was somewhat bluegrassy.  

It's long, but it holds your attention without getting too monotonous, which is hard to pull off.  That's my opinion anyway.  Now you know the story behind the song.  Hope it didn't wreck it for you.