- Despite its deep connection to West Virginia, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was actually inspired by a backroad in Maryland.
- The song came together with John Denver in a late-night writing session and was first performed live on December 30, 1970.
- Though some original lyrics didn’t make the final cut, the song has become a classic in American music history.
“Country roads, take me home / To the place I belong”—few choruses are more iconic…or more misleading.
John Denver’s beloved ballad may be West Virginia’s unofficial anthem, but here’s the truth: neither Denver nor his co-writers had ever actually set foot in the Mountain State when the song was written. In fact, the winding road that inspired “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was really a two-lane stretch in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Back in the late 1970s, the folk duo and couple Fat City, which consisted of Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, was headed to a family gathering when inspiration struck. As Bill was playing his guitar in the passenger seat, he began coming up with lyrics for a song intended for Johnny Cash to record. When the duo got to the “Almost heaven…” lyric, they were planning on using Massachusetts (because that’s where Bill is from), but it didn’t quite roll off the tongue like West Virginia did.
Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver performing on The John Denver Show.
Now, this is when John Denver comes into the story. Scheduled for a few shows at Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., Denver invited Bill and Taffy to be his opening act. Bill who was actually a doorman at the venue admitted, “Nobody at the club knew I sang or played anything.”
After a post-show car accident landed Denver in the ER with a broken thumb (don’t worry, he was out of there in no time), the singer visited the couple at their apartment where they wrote through the night to finish “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Danoff recalled that the song, “sounded to [him] like a hit song when [they] were writing it: The words were pretty; the chorus was nice; it felt good to sing.”
The next evening on December 30, 1970, they performed the song live for the first time ever as an encore. Denver even had to tape the lyrics to his mic stand considering he didn’t have much time to memorize them from the night before.
“John played a 12-string, Bill Danoff played a six-string, John had a lead guitar player, and a stand-up bass player,” said Jaffe. “It was a five-minute standing ovation. The walls were vibrating. I thought the club was going to implode.”
After that, Denver decided to record the song, with Bill and Taffy doing background vocals, as part of the 1971 album Poems, Prayers & Promises. Though the song became Denver’s first platinum single and West Virginia’s unofficial state anthem, some original lyrics didn’t survive the editing room. Unsurprisingly, “naked ladies, men who look like Christ, and a dog named Poncho nibbling on ice” didn’t make the radio cut.
Still, all these years later “Country Roads” continues to stop us all in our tracks and requires you to sing along. Even if it started on a Maryland backroad and not in the hills of West Virginia.
Chaise Sanders is a NYC-based writer with a knack for all things lifestyle, beauty, entertainment, and style. Her work has graced the pages of Cosmopolitan, Country Living, InStyle, and more. When she’s not busy crafting words, you can find her on Instagram roaming the streets of New York City, hunting down the best food spots, hidden gems, and deals.