Each state in the United States (except New Jersey) has a state song, selected by the state legislature as a symbol of the state. Some states have more than one official state song.
A few of these are among the best-known songs in the world, including "Swanee River", "Yankee Doodle", "You are my Sunshine", "My Old Kentucky Home", and "Home on the Range"; and a number of others are popular standards, including "Oklahoma" (from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical), Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind", "Tennessee Waltz", "Missouri Waltz", and "On the Banks of the Wabash". Many of the remainder, such as "Here We Have Idaho", "Utah, We Love Thee", and "State Song of Maine", are unlikely to be seen anywhere except on lists such as the following.
For the songs on StateSongs, one might expect that he'd take wacky facts about each state and set them to music, as he similarly did on "James K. Polk" from the Factory Showroom album.
There's also a lot of fun to be had in the near-instrumentals on StateSongs, such as the aforementioned "Pennsylvania" and the rave-up "Michigan," a loud, fast and out of control tune reminiscent of "The Famous Polka" that only features brief lyrics near its end.
StateSongs is just about as much fun as you can have listening to a CD, and hopefully dancing and singing along with wild abandon.
The status of Arkansas' statesongs was clarified in 1987 and is documented in the Arkansas Code (Title 1, Chapter 4).
It was at that point that Colonel Sanford (Sandy) C. Faulkner's dialogue and fiddle tune "The Arkansas Traveler" was considered and adopted as the Official StateSong of Arkansas by the General Assembly.
The resolution then goes on to say that the new statesong, "The Arkansas Traveler," chosen and reworded by the commission was in effect in 1945, four years before the commission was formed.
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