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Denver wrote this song with his friends Bill and Taffy Danoff, who were married at the time (Taffy later became Taffy Nivert). Denver was in Washington, DC to perform with the Danoffs, and after the show they went back to the couple's home where they played him what they had of this song (John almost didn't make it - he got in a car accident on the way over and was taken to a hospital for a thumb injury). Denver helped them complete the song, and the next night they sang it together on stage. Denver knew he had a hit song on his hands, and brought the Danoffs to New York where they recorded the song together - you can hear Bill and Taffy on background vocals.
The Country Roads in this song are in West Virginia, but Denver had never even been to West Virginia. Bill and Taffy Danoff started writing the song while driving to Maryland - they'd never been to West Virginia either! Danoff got his inspiration from postcards sent to him by a friend who DID live there, and from listening to the powerful AM station WWVA out of Wheeling, West Virginia, which he picked up in Massachusetts when he was growing up. Danoff told NPR in 2011: "I just thought the idea that I was hearing something so exotic to me from someplace as far away. West Virginia might as well have been in Europe, for all I knew."
The Danoffs were hoping to get Johnny Cash to record this song when they wrote it. They almost didn't play it for Denver because they didn't think it fit his style.
The Danoffs were in a band called Fat City at the time they wrote this. They later formed the Starland Vocal Band, who had a big hit with "
Afternoon Delight" in 1977. There was some speculation that Denver somehow screwed the Danoffs when he became famous and they remained in obscurity, but the couple always defended Denver in interviews, pointing out that he brought Fat City on tour and helped them get a record deal with his RCA/Windsong Records. Denver also recorded several other songs Bill Danoff wrote.
The Shenandoah River is in West Virginia, running right through Harper's Ferry into the Potomac. The Blue Ridge Mountain Ranges run in a strip from northeast West Virginia to its southwest across the eastern part of the state. Clopper Road originates in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was a single lane road, but is now a busy 4 lane road that heads to Germantown, Maryland. No country road anymore... not even close! It is attainable by exiting off of I-270 at Exit 10.
This was released as a single in the spring of 1971. It broke nationally in mid-April, but moved up the charts very slowly, as Denver was a little-known singer. To this point, Denver's biggest success was writing "
Leaving On A Jet Plane," which he performed as a member of The Chad Mitchell Trio but was a hit for Peter, Paul and Mary in 1969. Denver pushed RCA records to keep promoting "Take Me Home Country Roads," and their persistence paid off when it became a huge hit that summer. It was Denver's first hit, and the first of 13 US Top-40 hits he scored in the '70s.
Denver charted earlier in 1971 with "Friends With You" at #47, but "Country Roads" established him as a crossover artist with appeal to Pop, Country and Easy Listening audiences. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
Clopper Road is still there. It is a four lane road from Qince Orchard Boulevard to just past Rt. 118 where it returns to a two lane road. The end of Clopper Road is in a town called Boyds. From Rt. 118 to the end, the road is much like it was in 1969 through the mid-1980's. In 1969, it really did seem idyllic in a way. Other than the farms and a few houses, there was nothing between Gaithersburg and Boyds other than the few stores and a few businesses in Germantown, and a gas station/country store at the corner of Clopper Road and Rt. 118. Today, the road is built up from Quince Orchard Road to Seneca Creek, but the last mile or two is like it was back then. The concrete batch plant has been gone for a number of years, the old B&O railroad flag stop is now a MARC commuter rail stop for Boyds, but the rest of Clopper Road has been sold to housing developments. The trip from Rt. 118 to Boyds and to Dickerson beyond is still one of the nicest and peaceful drives in the Metropolitan area. (thanks, Kenneth - New Market, MD)
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"Hey Geoffrey,
Before there was Interstae 270 there was just old seventy and we picked it up going out MacArthur and turning up ?. (Taffy was driving.)
There used to be the Shady Grove theater out there and there was shady Grove Road.
There was an intersection with a roadhouse that catered to the poor black workers around there.
I think that's where it met Clopper Road, a two-laner.
We were on our way to the Isaac Walton Preserve and the road leading there was all cows, silos and the sort of thing I was used to from Western New England.
I became nostalgic and began a chorus that just repeated "Country roads"'
We worked on that and got it better.
Peace and Love,
Bill"
I don't know about who Danoff's supposed friend was- but he certainly didn't write the song. He took a song (submitted through those ads wanting song writers promising money--which never paid) and changed a couple of things...as for the lines that were left out...he may have written those trying to alter the song only to find it didn't work and stuck closer to the original knowing that back in those days a woman from WV wouldn't have the means to sue- and she didn't. She wrote many songs and submitted them to those ads hoping to survive...not necessarily get rich. John Denver claimed it as his own..he had the name and the promoter. The writer grew up in WV.
I am withholding her name for my family. She is now deceased. But know that neither Denver nor Danoff wrote it.
Good harmony but totally contrived lyrics with sexual innuendos.
At Times It Sounds Like Joan Biaz.
The Note Choices For The Harmony Is One Of The Things That Make This Song Stand Out And Be So Unique. Its Really Awesome..And A Faint 3Rd Part Harmony As Well. Someone Who Knows For Sure Please Let Me Know.
I Can Speculate But If Someone Definately Knows Tell Me.
i like this song very much.
the wordings are ausum ........
i listen this song every time...............
Stranger to blue water--The Atlantic Ocean forms your eastern border.
And there is not even one natural lake in West Virginia.
Do you think the 'stranger to blue water' line refers to the lack of indoor plumbing south of the Shenandoah Valley and the tidy bowl man?
--look up
--we might be flushing!
In the foothills hidin' from the clouds,
Pink and purple, West Virginia farmhouse.
Naked ladies, men who looked like Christ,
And a dog named Pancho, nibbling on the rice
-from billdanoff.com
Rudy, it is not weird or in drunken stupor that people (from all over the world) sing this song in the Hofbräuhaus (mind the spelling) or on the Oktoberfest in Munich but the deep feelings that go with this song. It is the romantic soul in everybody (including Germans/Bavarians) that is touched by the roads that lead home (no matter where it lies!) This magic is what makes people sing "country roads" especially when you are in public having a great time (Veronica, soccer world cup 2006, too)and drinking delicious beer (goes with wine as well?).
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Yes, Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, who at least started this song and mostly wrote it, were married at the time (Taffy never took Bill's last name). They were collectively called Fat City and sang backup vocals on JD's recording of it. Starland Vocal Band did not exist yet. That band was formed by Bill and Taffy and two of their musical friends, Jon Carroll and Margot Chapman, a few years later, and became famous for the Danoff song, "Afternoon Delight." I don't think Jon and Margot were in Fat City, but I'm not positive of this. BTW, Danoff has written several other songs that Denver made famous, including, "I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado."
* * *
As for the Shenandoah R. and Blue Ridge Mountains, yes, these are in VA, and yes, they are both also in WV. The Shenandoah (I don't know where its source is, maybe somebody out there knows) crosses VA Rte 55 just outside the town of Front Royal, VA, e.g. It meanders, flowing NE from there, into WV, just west of the Blue Ridge, which truly is a ridge, being a few miles wide, NW-to-SE, and a couple hundred miles long, SW-to-NE. At its NE end, it forms part of the VA-WV border, and actually crosses the Potomac into MD for about 7-8 miles. Meanwhile, the Shenandoah flows NE into the Potomac at Harpers Ferry, WV, as another commenter has noted. This is extraordinarily near (though not exactly at) the MD-VA-WV tri-state point. The Potomac in this region forms the border btwn MD to the N and VA/WV to the south (further upstream, it goes entirely into WV, where its source is). Just yesterday, I happened to be driving to a friend's house S of Harpers Ferry (in fact, the development they live in is called Blue Ridge Acres, in WV, and is actually on a part of Blue Ridge Mountain!) I travelled US340 westward out of Frederick, MD. Near the end of this leg of that trip, 340 turns S-ward to cross the Potomac into VA, then back to W-ward on the VA shore, then about 1/2 mile later crosses into WV. 1 or 2 miles after that it crosses the Shenandoah R., entirely in WV at that point, although my trip took me off the highway before the Shenandoah crossing. The VA-WV line in this region runs NE-SW, following the ridgeline of Blue Ridge Mountain, which has its eastern flank in VA, and its western flank in WV for about 15 miles, SW of which, the VA-WV border takes a sharp turn to the NW, and the Blue Ridge continues SW, entirely in VA. From the maps I've looked at so far, it seems to end just outside Roanoke, VA, not far from the line btwn Va and N.C./Tenn. If any or all of this seems confusing, just get onto Googlemaps, go to Harpers Ferry, WV, and click on 'hybrid' to get map and satellite photo overlaid.
from the places he describes and even then the imagery comes straight into my mind.
Live is old there,
Older than the trees...
One is in Virgina...and the other in Tennessee...
Country Roads, take me home, to the place....
I bet you failed geography. -_-;;
Sorry, this song is not about West Virginia. West Virginia only fit the rythm of the song. The shenandoah river is in Virginia. So are the Blue Ridge Mountains. Those are also in Virginia. Some one told me this and it came as a shock. But then I listened to the lyrics and realized, oh my god, he speaking of Virginia.
Still a great song but funny none the less.
i am trying to find the NYC cover, anyone know of it? its the same but "New York City..Where i Belong', anyone know who did this cover?
Toots & the Maytalls' reggae version of this song is wonderful. If WV Matt could put away his defensive blind pride for 3 minutes and listen to it, he might broaden his world outside the boarders of his small his state.
The Maytalls' version describes west Jamaica, when actually eastern Jamaica, with its still pure beauty, fits the meaning of the song better. It also mentions moonshine from the original words. But orthodox rastas, like Toots Hibbert, avoid drinking alcohol.
West Virginia is a beautiful state. I went through it in the late '80s, and enjoyed it very much.
Almost heaven, Huntsburg Ohio
Rolling hillsides, Cuyahoga River.......
Wow, I was lame. But that, to me, is the great thing about a lot of John Denver's songs. They are so powerful in their ability to create a visual image through words and song. They take me to wherever he is, whether it is on a dirt road in West Virginia or on a Rocky Mountain High, soaring with The Eagle and the Hawk, or riding the open seas on Calypso. Thanks JD.
Go Mountaineers!
(Whisper of the Heart)by studio gibli (the one that made spirited away). In that movie this song is featured during the opening and when the main character sings it with her friends in the japanese version.