Colorado Water Trust’s River Song Show Down
The People Have Spoken! Take Me to the River by Talking Heads is the greatest river song ever recorded! We have been in contact with the band members and we expect them to make an appearance to collect their trophy at our annual RiverBank celebration. If the band can’t make it you can be sure we will be playing our favorites from the Ultimate River Song Playlist so make sure to get your tickets when they go on sale…
Speaking of which, you can now listen to and save our Ultimate River Song Playlist here. Clocking in at over 100 songs, this should be on your stereo during your next river road trip. Thanks to Josh, our Staff Musical Archivist (and Senior Staff Attorney) for all his hard work on this.
March Music Madness 2026 Awards:
- Lifetime Achievement Award—Creedence Clearwater Revival. While their songs are over 50 years old they still connect with us and landed two entries into the Final 4.
- Barry Judd Excellence in Sophisticated Music Taste Award—Blake Mamich. While insisting he tried to pick the most normal songs from his library his unique choices all got bounced in the first round.
- Intramural Champion—Andi Bonato Gach. Andi had one song make it to the elite 8 while also completing a stunning come from behind victory in the staff NCAA tournament pool.
- Pump up the Volume Award—Bryce Denton, Karlyn Armstrong, and Tony LaGreca. All three had all three of their songs make it to the Sweet 16.
- Cinderalla Story Award—Dana Hatlelid. TLC Waterfalls was a 6th seeded song that went all the way to the Championship Game.
Some Shame…
We asked you to tell us what we missed and boy did we hear it. I nearly had to resign my Staff Music Critic role over some of these glaring omissions. Here are our top 10 misses many of which may have been odds on favorites to win had we been smart enough to pick them.
- Graceland—Paul Simon. Possibly his greatest song.
- Whiskey River—Willy Nelson. Yeesh I’m embarrassed by this miss.
- Many Rivers to Cross—Jimmy Cliff. Can always use more Reggae.
- Down by the Riverside—Louis Armstrong. Satchmo, nuff said.
- Chattahoochee—Alan Jackson. A worthy rival of Garth Brooks.
- Islands in the Stream—Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers. Two Icons at the top of their game.
- Can’t Help Falling In Love—Elvis. Can’t deny the King.
- Blue Danube Walz—Johann Strauss. Consistently popular since 1867.
- Paradise—John Prine. Legendary doesn’t even come close to describing it.
- Aquaboogie—Parliament. The funkiest river song ever recorded.
- Rivers of Babylon—Sublime. I had to get this fan favorite some love somewhere.
This tournament was so much fun and we want to thank everyone for participating. Our initial Instagram post had over 1,600 views—by far one of the most viewed posts we have ever had. Where were you people when we released our white paper on untested flow restoration tools, huh? We also got 118 new followers on Instagram since we started the tournament! We are so happy that so many more people are part of our community now. And, our staff had the most fun talking trash in the zoom chat and getting downright competitive during tiebreaker voting sessions.
All this fun and energy is easy to explain. We all have an deep emotional attachment to music and if you are friends with Colorado Water Trust, then we know you have an emotional attachment to Colorado’s rivers. We care deeply about music and about our rivers—thanks for joining us for the fun and we hope you stick around to help us out as we bring our passion to our work. ‘Cause no one can take you to the river if there’s no water in it.
Tony LaGreca
Stewardship Manager & Staff Music Critic
tlagreca@coloradowatertrust.org
720.570.2897 ext 4