"O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.

America, America, God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea."

I know that was written on Pike's Peak, not a National Park, but that's one I think of regarding any of our great mountainous parks - Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Glacier, etc.

I just got back from a week in Glacier NP. Instead of focusing on lyrics and/or the message in the songs, I found myself constantly reaching for two artists - Ryan Bingham and Hayes Carll. Why? The music worked with the land. These were the right sounds for the right place.

If I'd been somewhere other than Glacier, the results might have been different. Heading to Mammoth Cave this weekend and I don't know if I'll reach for the same tunes. Maybe some Hank III for this trip. But whatever you pick, it needs to marry sound and place.

Two completely different pieces, associated with Glacier. First, if you fire up Leonard Bernstein's Requiem Mass right at the first big turn on Going-to-the-Sun road going from West to east, (by the gravel pit, when you turn left to start the big climb), the music creates a sound track for the road like no other-- swelling with the turns, etc. Try it, classical music lovers!

Secondly, extraordinary park ranger Dave Casteel used to sing the old song which inspired the name of the Garden Wall at his campfire programs:

"Over the Garden Wall/ the sweetest girl of all/

There never were such eyes of jet/and even yet/ who can forget?

The night our lips in kisses met/over the Garden Wall"

Accoustic guitar, generally (partly because of Al Petteway's music being used in Ken Burns's documentary). I listened to William Ackerman around the Grand Canyon (though the Grofe work within, and Copland in the long desert drive back to Vegas). Listened to California Guitar Trio in Shenandoah, and Ackerman and/or Petteway through the Great Smokeys.

Michael Hedges and Steve Howe through Sequoia. Yosemite was unusual in that on the drive there we were in a Pixar mood that kept going, so while in the valley floor it was the score for Finding Nemo. Go fig.

When I was driving through Yellowstone last week I kept listening to Eddie Vedder's song Guaranteed off the Into the Wild soundtrack. If you haven't had the oppertunity to listen to it you should or just read this set of lyrics:

Don't come closer or I'll have to go, Holding me like gravity are places that pull, If ever there was someone to keep me at home, It would be you...

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere, Underneath my being is a road that disappeared, Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead, Overhead...

Leave it to me as I find a way to be, Consider me a satellite forever orbiting, I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me, Guaranteed

Eddie Vedder "Into the wild" soundtrack

Anything by John Denver. Since my girls were little and we started to visit National Parks, we would put on John Denver. Now as teenagers, they actually make sure that we don't forget the CD of his greatest hits before we go exploring any National Park.

Vast blue skies and scenic sandstone vistas, cliff dwellings and petroglyphs... I always listen to Native American flute music when visiting national parks and monuments in the Four Corners region, including Arches, Canyonlands, Natural Bridges, Monument Valley tribal park and Mesa Verde. Flute music captures the eerie spirit of the region and pays homage to an ancient people long vanished.