When John Denver released "Rocky Mountain High," it quickly became a hit that rose on the charts, but its title and lyrics led to scrutiny. The country rock track became a road trip and generational staple that was once stopped from radio play by the government.
"Rocky Mountain High" was released the day before Halloween in 1972 and became the title track of his album of the same name. It rose to the No. 9 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and took Denver a long nine months to fully complete. The track's success not only made it a road trip staple but would later be named one of the official state songs of Colorado.
According to Denver, the song's lyrics and inspiration came from his love for the state after having moved there three years prior. According to SongFacts, Denver was inspired after having witnessed Perseid meteor showers while up in Williams Lake. He was with friends and his then-wife Annie, working on their next album called Mother's Nature's Son.
"Imagine a moonless night in the Rockies in the dead of summer, and you have it. I had insisted to everybody that it was going to be a glorious display. Spectacular, in fact," he said.
He further details having stepped out of the lake while everyone else had retreated to their tents. Soon, the meteor show began and created a spectacular moment that sparked inspiration. While lying next to his then-wife, all he was "thinking about how in nature all things, large and small, were interwoven, when swoosh, a meteor went smoking by."
Anyone who knows Denver's love for the state would know what the track was about, but it soon became controversial thanks to the government. At the time, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was legally allowed to censor music that it felt was promoting drug use. As a result, multiple radio stations cautiously banned the track.
Denver stated that the lyrics of "everybody's high" were meant as an innocent description of peace and resonating with nature. He would defend the track in front of the Senate in 1985 in a motion against the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) labeling albums.
“This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains,” Denver said in his defense. “And also had never experienced the elation, celebration of life or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something as wondrous as the Perseid meteor shower on a moonless, cloudless night, when there are so many stars that you have a shadow from the starlight, and you are out camping with your friends, your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature’s most spectacular light shows for the first time.”
Related: 1971 Folk Ballad, Inspired by a Painful Breakup, Became an Unlikely Holiday Classic
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