SONGS ABOUT Yellowstone

The otherworldly grandeur of Yellowstone has inspired a melodic earful from multiple composers and performers.

Songs of praise for the nation’s first national park date to the 1800’s and salute everything from its rivers to its winds to its fires. Behind the tributes are writers as diverse as Grammy-award winner John Denver (“Yellowstone, Coming Home” in 1997) and a Grand Rapids, Michigan, high school music director (“We Love You Old Faithful” circa 1930). In 1989 the neoclassical New Age group, Mannheim Steamroller, released “Yellowstone: The Music of Nature,” which pays homage to the park.

Each summer, the park’s tuneful traditions begin anew. Guests at its major lodges can relax to live music after a day of wilderness exploration. You’ll find a variety of music including pianists, violinists, and even a string quartet performing on summer evenings at Lake Yellowstone Hotel, the Old Faithful Inn, and in the Map Room at the historic Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.

For those interested in dining al fresco, the park’s Old West Dinner Cookout features hot-off-the-grill steaks served with a generous helping of homegrown entertainment from a singing cowboy.

Long before the digital era, 1920s diners at Old Faithful Inn were serenaded by live string musicians perched on the balcony overlooking the dining room. After dinner, the staff rolled up the rugs so guests could dance away the evening to live music.

In the 1930s, the Gene Quaw Orchestra, neatly dressed in matching white, pressed trousers, double-breasted blazers, and bowties, performed at the Canyon Hotel, ending many nights with the song “Yellowstone.” The 1937 arrangement might not be in heavy rotation, but its chorus will resonate with visitors touched by Yellowstone’s beauty.

Yellowstone, Yellowstone, best of any place that I have ever known.
Skies of blue, friends so true, call me back to summer days in Yellowstone.

In the 1960s, folk groups like the Villagers, gathered to sing the praises of the park with original songs like, “On My Twentieth Summer.” In the 1970s, Yodelin’ Slim Clark penned and performed “On the Banks of the Old Yellowstone.”

In 2002 a local outfitter and composer, Jett Hitt, wrote an entire symphony, “Yellowstone for Violin and Orchestra,” inspired by countless horseback rides through the park’s vast backcountry.

MUSIC IN OUR LODGES

Check out a sampling of the music you might find in lodges when you visit Yellowstone National Park.

Mammoth Hotel Map Room –
This song, by Randy Ingersoll, represents a day in the Absaroka Mountains of Yellowstone Park.

Old Faithful Inn –
A violinist playing from the balcony of the Old Faithful Inn.

Lake Yellowstone Hotel –
A pianist playing in the sunroom

Old Faithful Snow Lodge in Winter –
The Game of Thrones theme song, as performed by Martha Colby on a winter night at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge.

Roosevelt Lodge Cabins & Roosevelt Corral –
Old West Dinner Cookout with Cowboy Rick Steinke

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