"Rocky Mountain Way" is a 1973 song by rock guitarist Joe Walsh and his band Barnstorm, with writing credits given to all four band members: Walsh, Rocke Grace, Kenny Passarelli, and Joe Vitale. The song was originally released on the album The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get.
The song features Walsh using a guitar talk box, manufactured by sound engineer Bob Heil, who invented the device used by almost every rock music exponent. The distinct tone "... gives Walsh's blues stomp a futuristic wave, as if a hulking mechanical beast was looming just over those rocky mountains."
Walsh appeared in studio on The Howard Stern Show on June 12, 2012 and talked about how the lyrics to the song came to him in 1972 shortly after releasing his first solo effort, Barnstorm.
"I'm living in Colorado and I'm mowing the lawn. I look up and there's the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and there's snow on them in the summer. And it knocked me back because it was just beautiful. And I thought, 'Well I have committed. I'm already in Colorado and it's too late to regret the James Gang. The Rocky Mountain way is better than the way I had, because the music was better.' I got the words. Bam!"
Walsh has varied that story over the years, however, telling the Rocky Mountain News that he wrote the lyrics while up recording the album at Caribou Ranch Recording Studio.
Lyrics
Spent the last year Rocky Mountain Way
Couldn't get much higher
Out to pasture, think it's safe to say
Time to open fire
And we don't need the ladies
Cryin' 'cause the story's sad
'Cause the Rocky Mountain way
Is better than the way we had
Well he's tellin' us this, and he's tellin' us that
Changes it every day
Says it doesn't matter
Bases are loaded and Casey's at bat
Playin' it play by play
Time to change the batter
And we don't need the ladies
Cryin' 'cause the story's sad
Rocky Mountain way
Is better than the way we had
Yeah, yeah, yeah
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