“Colorado” by Milky Chance

Whereas Milky Chance may be a group of musicians from Germany, they’re still compelled to give a shoutout to Colorado, which is found in the United States. And that’s because as far as weed is concerned, being the first state to legalize it for recreational use, Colorado serves as a well-accepted symbol as far as the weed-advocacy community is concerned.

And in the chorus, the vocalist namedrops the locality as part of a metaphor pointing to him “get(ting) high like Colorado”. Well, the “like Colorado” part is actually the metaphor. But in terms of him stating that he “get(s) high”, that phrase reads more or less like it is literal.

Is “Colorado” a weed Song?

But that said, “Colorado” is not to be confused with an actual weed song. In fact outside of that aforementioned line the vocalist seems to make only one other reference to herb, via yet another metaphor where he speaks inaccurately being under the impression that the relationship between him and the addressee was “evergreen”, i.e. all-good. And said addressee would be his significant other. So yes folks, once you get past the titular reference what we’re actually dealing with her is more akin to a love song.

Or even more accurately, “Colorado” appears to be a breakup tune. The singer is coming to grips with the fact that the relationship between him and the addressee has dissolved. And he is in his feelings accordingly, as it seems that he is the one more or less getting dumped. Indeed with all of that in mind, apparently the reason he is compelled to “get high” is in an attempt to “push away the [associated] sorrow”, i.e. ideally getting so blazed that he forgets about losing the woman he loves.

But all of that noted, there also appears to be a sentiment of probable redemption underlying it all. In other words, whereas the singer’s lover may be snubbing him at the moment, it doesn’t sound like he has completely thrown the possibility of reconciliation out the window.

But until then, his mind is totally not at peace. And evidently, as revealed in the pre-chorus, all of this has something to do with him being ‘jealous’, which in the context of the narrative we would presume is in relation to the prospect of his lady now dating other dudes.

“Colorado”

This track was released, at the time as a standalone single, on 18 June 2021. And the label behind its issuance is Muggelig Records which, like Milky Chance, is based in Germany.

As of the writing of this post the core membership of Milky Chance is three members’ deep:

• vocalist/guitarist Clemens Rehbein
• drummer/percussionist Philipp Dausch
• guitarist/harmonicist Antonio Greger

Milky Chance

They also have a fourth touring member, drummer Sebastian Schmidt, who has been down since 2016. It was Rehbein and Dausch who founded the crew back in 2012. And it was also the two of them who wrote and produced “Colorado”. In the latter case they workred alongside Tobias Kuhn.

Up until this point Milky Chance has released three full-length albums:

• 2013’s Sadnecessary
• 2017’s Blossom 
• 2019’s Mind the Moon

Out of the trio the second has proven most successful in the Western world proper, having made it onto the top 20 of the Billboard 200 and the being the only one out of three lot to appear on the UK Singles Chart.

And as far as their singles go it was actually Milky Chance’s debut effort, “Stolen Dance” (2013), which made the most noise. For instance, on top of going quadruple-platinum in Australia it also went double-platinum stateside, being by far their best-performing song to date.