I can't remember the last time I was in Arkansas. I think it was more of a "through" than a "to" thing. If I had to guess, it was probably during a trip my family took down to Oklahoma to visit one of my dad's old navy buddies when I was a kid. I'll likely write more about Oklahoma when we get to the "O's", but I have lots of fond memories from that trip.
As far as 
Arkansas was adopted as the 25th state on June 15th 1836. If you ever want to read a really good book, you should check out "How the States Got their Shapes". I read it a long time ago and it was a really good read. While some of the borders are pretty obvious due to rivers and things like that, some of them are quite interesting to hear the bigger story behind the scenes. I can't remember what the deal was with Arkansas. You have to admit, it's kind of funny shaped, but with the Mississippi River on the eastern edge, it's probably not too hard to figure out. The key oddity would be that dip Missouri takes in the northeast corner, and the chunk Texas takes out of the southwest.
As you may or may not remember, as part of the #threetunetuesday initiative started by 
The idea behind these posts is pretty clear. The song either has to have the name of the state in the title or the lyrics. Simply referencing a city in the state isn't good enough. If that was the case I probably would have had a ton of "Little Rock" songs in this post.
Anyway, this song is a really great upbeat tune by Stapleton. He's pretty dang amazing if you ever get the chance to see him live. He doesn't put on a super flashy show with pyrotechnics and all of that, but he gives you a solid couple hours of entertainment. That's what it's really all about right?
Next we are going to follow up with another song simply called "Arkansas", but this one is by Glen Campbell. Campbell was actually born in Arkansas in case you didn't know that. I didn't until I started doing the research for this post. I know this song sounds a little hokey, but I am actually a pretty big fan of Campbell. He has some really good songs if you bother to dig into his catalog.
Probably not this one though.
Don't get me wrong, it tells a good story, and it probably resonates with people who live in Arkansas quite a bit, but I think we can all agree the lyrics aren't some piece of art. It's more a lesson in rhyming words than anything. Which honestly is kind of impressive because rhyming anything with Arkansas is probably a chore in itself!
Finally, I am going to leave you today with the man in black. Yep, that's right, good old Johnny Cash and his song "Arkansas Lovin' Man". Like Arkansas by Campbell, I am not sure I have ever heard this song before in my entire life. That's one of the things that's cool about digging into some of these older artists. Besides hearing the familiar hits that you are used to, you also get to find some hidden gems here and there.
Cash was actually born in Arkansas as well, so I guess when it comes to talking about an Arkansas Lovin' Man, he probably knows his stuff better than most.
This isn't one of Cash's grittier songs, but I actually don't hate the lyrics on this one. He does some turns and runs that only Cash can do and it makes the song pretty unique and definitely has his fingerprints on it.
I should point out, the song was actually written by Red Lane who is actually from Nebraska, but the tune is associated the most with Cash.
So there you go, we are nearly a tenth of the way through our musical journey across the nation. Since there are no states that start with "B", that means next week we head to the coast and explore California.
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