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| {{Infobox song | | {{Infobox song |
| | Name = Colorado | | | Name = Colorado |
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| '''Colorado''' is a single by [[The Rentals]] released on [[September 27]], 2008 as a precursor to ''[[Songs About Time]]''. The song was previously played by [[Matt Sharp]] during his [[2004]] solo acoustic tours. | | '''Colorado''' is a single by [[The Rentals]] released on [[September 27]], 2008 as a precursor to ''[[Songs About Time]]''. The song was previously played by [[Matt Sharp]] during his [[2004]] solo acoustic tours. |
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| ==A few words about Colorado from Matt & The Rentals== | | ==Overview== |
| | "Colorado" was a single-only release, meaning it is not featured on any of The Rentals' albums. Like many other songs in the band's discography, the song features extensive use of synthesizers and female vocal harmony. This was the first release by the band to include vocalist [[Jamie Blake]]. The song's intro is a collage of strings and synthesizer. The band attempted many nontraditional methods of recording for this song, some of which include the drum beats programmed into a keyboard and drumming with drum sticks on the floor of the studio. |
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| The following is a note from the Rentals about Colorado posted on therentals.com: | | The second video included in the ''Songs About Time'' project shows the band recording the song. Their video archive can be found [http://www.therentals.com/content.php here]. |
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| | ===Solo performances=== |
| | "Colorado" was written during Sharp's acoustic solo career, and he performed it many times while on tour. The video below features [[Goldenboy]] acting as Sharp's backing band. As is expected from this era of Sharp's career, the song is very stripped down and relaxed. The tempo is slower and a piano melody is more prominent. |
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| | <youtube>OGTjDS8rGDI</youtube><br><br> |
| | ==Release message== |
| | "[[A few words about Colorado from Matt & The Rentals]]" was posted by The Rentals on their [http://www.myspace.com/therentals MySpace] about "Colorado." It describes how the song was written, recorded, and chosen for release. |
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| <lyrics>"Why Colorado?
| | ==Personnel== |
| | | *[[Matt Sharp]] - vocals |
| A couple of months ago one of my oldest friends asked me if The Rentals would like to contribute a song to a compilation that he was about to put together.
| | *[[Dan Joeright]] - percussion (digital keyboard drums, drum set) |
| | | *[[Lauren Chipman]] - keyboards, strings |
| In a brief conversation about what kind of songs he was looking for he threw out a couple key words like “cold, travel, winter” and “adventure” …and we both kind of laughed and felt slightly ridiculous.
| | *[[Jamie Blake]] - vocals, percussion |
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| I told him that unfortunately we didn’t have anything that I thought would be appropriate and in any case we were deep in pre-production for The Rentals new album and we were just about to go into a proper studio.
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| I wanted us to stay focused on the big picture.
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| But, this old friend of mine, who is a bear of a man, can be quite persistent.
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| Even so, against his enthusiasm and charm I continued to decline the invitation.
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| A week or two later our manager suggested this song “Colorado”.
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| Colorado was a song that I used to play on my solo tours usually when I was by myself with a few acoustic guitars and a small audience sitting on a sea of dirty pillows.
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| You know, some songs come fast, some songs come real slow, but truthfully in the end you don’t care how they come …just as long as they keep coming.
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| Colorado, as I remember, was written in about 10 to 15 minutes.
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| Cut to: what seems like five or six million years ago
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| Some friends of mine were throwing a “bon voyage” concert for a girl named Sloan. She had come to Los Angeles looking something …something that always seemed to be ever so slightly out of her grasp.
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| So, I wrote this for a girl, whom I barely knew, who was simply searching for the elusive something.
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| The following morning Sloan set off on her journey.
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| Colorado was intended to be just a song for that evening, a farewell song, a good luck song, a take care of yourself type song.
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| That was all.
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| End of flashback.
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| Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that maybe we could use this opportunity with Colorado as a test run for our new album. I began to think that this might possibly be the best way to get our collective feet wet.
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| And by the way, it is god damned hot out here in LA at the moment and we’re long overdue to jump in the pool.
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| We converted my last home into a studio and started recording the synths, strings, acoustic guitars and vocals.
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| Then something unexpected happened while recording Colorado …maybe because it was a “one off”, maybe because it was a “throw away”, maybe because it was not “attached to the big picture” …for whatever reason. There was a great sense of levity while we were working on this song.
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| There was something altogether more careless, joyous and even silly during this recording.
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| I guess, most of the time, I think about albums as being, more or less, like films. The records that I seem to find myself involved with usually have common themes and characters that run throughout all of the songs and tie together each verse and chorus into some kind of unified story.
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| That might sound awfully lofty, pretentious and stupid, but it is what it is.
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| Someone in the band once joked around with me saying that I would probably prefer that our album would be sung in a different language, complete with subtitles and that it would only be released in art house movie theatres.
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| Yes, maybe so.
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| Any way Colorado was liberated from all of that nonsense.
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| Never can I remember a time for The Rentals where we had more effortless fun during a recording session.
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| We were liberated from our everyday way of working. We let go and simply enjoyed ourselves.
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| As I mentioned earlier there was a feeling of carelessness. I guess what I really meant by that is that we felt more open to let loose and experiment in a bolder way than we ever had before.
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| Once we took the song out of my house and moved into King Size Studios we started layering drum grooves upon drum grooves, pianos upon melotrons and a toy omni-chord upon a partridge in a pear tree.
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| My only fear is that perhaps we tried to squeeze our entire new album into three minutes and thirty seconds, but it’s far too late to worry about that now.
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| While we were doing all this there were a couple cinematographers running around filming things like a vicious drum stick duel on the cement floor of the studio.
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| Did I tell you that we’re making a movie? ….well, I think that’s a story for another day.
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| The good news is that, this song, Colorado has energized all of us involved with The Rentals.
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| And I believe that means that we’ll be releasing much more new music much sooner then we have recently believed was possible.
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| Well, I hope you all have had a lovely summer.
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| We look forward to seeing you sometime soon.
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| Kindest regards,
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| Matt and The Rentals"</lyrics>
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| ==Lyrics== | | ==Lyrics== |
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| <Lyrics>Sometime tomorrow Sloan steps out to the road | | <Lyrics>Sometime tomorrow Sloan steps out to the road |
| She packs her bags and loads them up and off she goes to Colorado | | She packs her bags and loads them up and off she goes to Colorado |
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| But, why to Colorado I don’t know</lyrics> | | But, why to Colorado I don’t know</lyrics> |
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| | ==See also== |
| | *"[[A few words about Colorado from Matt & The Rentals]]" |
| | *[[List of The Rentals songs]] |
| | *''[[Songs About Time]]'' |
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| [[Category: The Rentals songs]] | | [[Category: The Rentals songs]] |
| [[Category: Matt Sharp]] | | [[Category: Matt Sharp]] |
