The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #94075 Message #3806811
Posted By: Joe Offer
26-Aug-16 - 12:45 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Country Roads (John Denver) alt. versions
Subject: DT Correction: Take Me Home, Country Roads
The lyrics in the Digital Tradition are correct, but the songwriter name and title are incomplete:
TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS (Bill Danoff, T. Nivert Danoff, and John Denver)
Almost heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River Life is old there, older than the trees Younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze
CHORUS: Country roads, take me home To the place I belong West Virginia, mountain mama Take me home, country roads
All my memories gather 'round her, Miner's lady, stranger to blue water Dark and dusty, painted on the sky Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye
BRIDGE: I hear her voice, in the morning hours she calls me Radio reminds me of my home far away Driving down the road, I get a feelinG That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday
Copyright 1971 by Cherry Lane Music Co. @home @American filename[ CNTRYRD SS Notes from Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy, by Dorothy Horstman (Country Music Foundation Press, 1975), pp. 24-25.
"We had been receiving letters from an artist friend who lived in the mountains of West Virginia, reveling in the beauty of the countryside. Then, on the way to a family reunion of Taffy's relatives in Maryland, Bill started to write a song about the little, wind-y roads we were driving on to get there. The song hung around for awhile as the two words, "country roads." Later, Bill decided to write the song about our artist friend. The original second verse was:
In the foothills, hiding 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.
We knew before it was finished it would never get on the air, but we wrote the chorus anyway. During the last week of December 1970, John Denver came over to our apartment after the last show at the Cellar Door in Washington DC, where we were both appearing. He heard the song, got excited, and we dropped the second verse and finished writing it at six o'clock in the morning. The rest is history. Someday we'll visit West Virginia." -Bill and Taffy Danoff- Bill Danoff also wrote the 1976 hit, "Afternoon Delight," recorded by the Starland Vocal Band.
I wonder if the Danoffs ever got to West Virginia....