Colorado - Another Two State Songs Quiz

Answer:

Two songs of the high plains, nearly three-quarters of a century apart, written by two very different men, but incredibly similar too.
A.J. Flynn was a New York transplant to the Centennial State who came as an archeology professor and, as many seem to do, fell in love with the West. Given to long hikes where he visited Native archology sites, especially the Mesa Verde, Dr. Flynn was a lover of the Colorado outdoors. One day in 1911, he was walking along a field looking down at the rolling valleys below and found himself among a bunch of columbines - small purplish flowers that resemble bluebells. He was so struck by the sight of the natural plains below him and the flowers around him that he simply felt wrapped up in the natural world. His archeologist's mind was thrown back to the days of the Native people that he loved and studied, and he wrote the nostalgic poem that would later become Colorado's first anthem.
The song was adopted within four-years of its creation, but was almost immediately criticized. At first this was simply because nowhere in the lyrics does it even mention the name of the state (!). Dr. Flynn tried to fix this by adding a fourth verse with Colorado in it. That quieted the critics for a bit, but soon the second verse, with its patronizing tone towards the Native Americans, was criticized - a chorus that has only grown louder over the years.
Not surprising then, is the fact that in 2007 Colorado adopted a second anthem, this time John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High".
Denver, another transplant, this time from Roswell, NM just across the border, was also a lover of the outdoors and long walks in the woods. His collaborator in writing the song, the band's guitarist Mike Taylor, eventually became an archeologist like Dr. Flynn. This is not the only parallel in the songs. Both songs reference the need for the preservation of the wilds of the state, both are ballads of man in nature, and both were criticized.
"Rocky Mountain High", amusingly, was dinged in its day for a supposed pro-drug message, something the pot-smoking Denver adamantly denied. That said, the irony runs even deeper when you remember that Colorado (along with Washington State) were the first places in the nation to legalize weed for recreational use.