The Old West Meets New Beginnings on the Tracks to Anonymity
By Christian Lamitschka for Country Music News International Magazine
Dallas Burrow’s “Colorado Bound,” featuring the incomparable Kelly Willis, is less a song and more a brief, wind-swept film capturing a moment of profound, romantic escape. Taken from Burrow’s 2025 album, The Way The West Was Won, the track is a masterclass in atmospheric Americana, rooted deeply in the tradition of Western storytelling popularized by influences like Townes Van Zandt, yet feeling urgently present.
The Artists:
Dallas Burrow is a Texas-born singer-songwriter and road-ready troubadour whose work consistently honors the iconography and spirit of the Old West. His songwriting style favors narrative depth, often conjuring images of cowboys, outlaws, and long, dusty journeys. Burrow’s baritone vocal is steady, authoritative, and perfectly suited to his themes.
Kelly Willis, the featured vocalist, is a long-revered figure in the Americana and Alt-Country landscape. Known for her “signature, golden voice,” Willis possesses a smooth, clear, and immensely empathetic vocal delivery that can elevate any song she touches, often lending a gentle sense of heartbreak or wistful longing.
The Review:
“Colorado Bound” is a finger-picked ballad that evokes the rhythmic click-clack of a train pulling away from a familiar platform. Produced by Grammy winner Lloyd Maines, the track benefits from pristine acoustic arrangement: Burrow’s guitar and vocals are the grounding force, elevated by Lloyd Maines’s sensitive work on dobro and bass, and anchored by Pat Manske’s soft percussion. However, the true sonic heart is the fiddle, played beautifully by Katie Shore, which weaves a melancholy, cinematic thread through the high plains the subject is crossing.
The narrative concerns a solitary individual catching a “sleeper car,” running away from an “old life” and seeking a “new start in the mountains of Colorado.” Burrow’s lyrics are evocative, focusing on the introspection of the journey: “Looking out the window at all the ghosts along the Great Plains / You can’t remember when though, but you’ve been here before, and the memory remains.” This notion of déjà vu—of this journey being an “eternal questing”—adds a spiritual weight to the physical act of running.
The duet shines brightest in the chorus, where Kelly Willis joins Burrow. Her harmony is hushed yet resonant, providing a layer of vulnerability and admiration for the one who successfully “got away.” The core sentiment, “Ain’t no one gonna find you / If you don’t want to be found / Leave your troubles all behind you / Darlin’ you are Colorado bound,” feels like a shared blessing for the soul seeking anonymity and peace. It’s a rich, vibrant duet that succeeds because it never forces the emotion; it simply lets the quiet dignity of escape and the vastness of the American landscape speak for themselves. This song is a must-listen for anyone who appreciates Western mythology tempered with profound, human emotion.