Take Me Home, Country Roads
Take Me Home, Country Roads is an American country song written by John Denver , Bill Danoff, and Taffy Nivert Danoff . The piece was released by John Denver in 1971 on his album Poems, Prayers and Promises , reached number 2 on the American Billboard Hot 100 and went gold . In 2000 it was voted Country Song of the Century by the ASCAP .
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The text of the piece describes feelings and thoughts while driving home on a country road. The driver remembers his home in West Virginia . The chorus evokes the intense desire to return home, to the place “where you belong and where you come from”. Several references to the state are mentioned in the text , such as the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah River , but also special features such as home-made moonshine or the local mining industry .
West Virginia reception
In March 2014, the song Take Me Home, Country Roads was declared an official anthem by Parliament in West Virginia. The song has been played at all home games of the West Virginia Mountaineers football team at West Virginia University since 1972 . When a new field was inaugurated in 1980, John Denver performed the song live and invited those present to sing along. Since then, the piece has been part of the university's sporting tradition.
Cover versions
The piece is one of the most famous country pieces of the 1970s and has been covered by numerous artists such as Ray Charles , Earl Scruggs , Statler Brothers , Tennessee Ernie Ford , Wayne Newton , Lynn Anderson and Olivia Newton-John . Further recordings were made by Toots & The Maytals in 1973 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1987. Shortly before his death in 1997, the Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole played his own version of the piece live at the Hawaii Theater . The cover version of the Dutch Hermes House Band from 2001 was able to stay in the German single charts for eleven weeks and reached number two. The Rockys released a version freely translated into German in 2017.
Use in film and games
In the Japanese anime film Voice of the Heart - Whisper of the Heart , a student translates the song into Japanese for the choir of her school . The piece, renamed Concrete Road , describes a district of Tokyo . The version by Olivia Newton-John is also part of the soundtrack . The song is also used in Steven Soderbergh's film Logan Lucky and Kingsman: The Golden Circle . In the game Fallout 76 , a cover version of the group Spanks is part of the soundtrack.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cherrylane Music Group website, accessed on March 17, 2008
- ^ "Country Roads" is the new anthem from West Virginia. In: orf.at , March 7, 2014, accessed on November 21, 2017.
- ↑ Alumni website of the University of West Virginia on university traditions ( Memento of the original from October 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/Spankdoowop/
