Rocky Mountain…WHY????
Fifty-two years ago, John Denver released his siren call to the charms of Colorado. And ruined everything. My latest commentary for NPR. WRITTEN & ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE
Though this post is about my adopted home state of Colorado, I’m actually floating on the Danube right now. I know, that sounds crazy. Every time I look out the window I think: What am I doing here? When I figure that out, I’ll post about it. Meanwhile, here’s my NPR commentary on Colorado’s second state song…the one that ruined it all. It’s a good thing I flew across the Atlantic before it aired. I’ve heard rumors of torch-lit protests outside our house in Fort Collins. Will return when it’s safe.
WHERE WERE YOU the first time you heard “Rocky Mountain High”?
Chances are, you weren’t in Colorado, and that’s the problem: you eventually moved here, because you too wanted to see starlight softer than a lullaby.
I did the same thing.
But as our Front Range cities grow along with light pollution and the hazy murk that haunts our horizon, that soft starlight is harder and harder to see. Has there ever been a stronger enticement to trample fragile turf? In this Rocky Mountain idyll, we’re the invasive species: we move in, and we force the beautiful animals, plants, and people we came here to meet, to move out.
And John Denver posted the eviction notice.
I was in high school in Connecticut when I first heard that irresistible opening guitar lick–dreamed up by John Denver’s friend Mike Taylor. It was a siren call to the West, and lots of us heard it. Only 2.4 million us Coloradans, out of a current population of nearly six million, were actually born here. And that’s kinda spooky. 2.4 million was the population of Colorado before “Rocky Mountain High” was released. So 3.4 million of us–me included—are now coming home to a place we’d never been before.
And John Denver threw out the welcome mat.
His classic song debuted at Red Rocks, naturally, and it was released to the general public on the day after my 16th birthday—October 30th, 1972. It changed my life. I joined the ecology club in high school. I protested new highways. I stopped showering. In college, “Rocky Mountain High” was my excuse to skip class and hike in the White Mountains.
You guessed it: Friends around the campfire, and everybody’s high.
John Denver was summoned before Congress in 1985 to explain that lyric, back when cannabis was a scourge rather than a business opportunity. Not that kind of high, the folkie insisted. Rather, it’s the natural high one feels in a boat on Williams Lake, near Aspen, and singing at the top of your lungs because it’s so freakin’ beautiful.
The only problem: That kind of high is indeed addictive. For five decades, nature boys and girls like me and my wife have been stampeding out here from California, Texas, Illinois, and my former home state, Pennsylvania.
The citizens of Colorado initially tried to keep it all to themselves, turning down the Winter Olympics in 1972. Then “Rocky Mountain High” hit the airwaves. Last winter, Colorado enticed 14 million skiers and boarders to our slopes. They tried to tear the mountains down, to bring in a couple more. More people, more scars upon the land.
That’s another prophetic lyric from “Rocky Mountain High.” New Mexico’s own John Deutschendorf, Jr., both predicted the despoiling of his adopted state and fomented it at the same time. Meanwhile, Wyoming–with similar land area and equally fabulous terrain–has five million fewer residents. Of course, nobody ever wrote an ear-wormy song called “Cowboy Mountain High” to encourage flower children to overpopulate Wyoming.
In 2007, Colorado legislators sanctified “Rocky Mountain High” as our second state song. Have you ever heard our other state song, “Where the Columbines Grow”? No? Exactly. It was perfect.
Instead we’ve enshrined the biggest migratory enticement since the Land Rush of 1889. Given the perilous state of our environment, the housing shortage, and the traffic jams on I-70, you could say that John Denver is our Patron Saint of Real Estate. He knew he’d be a poorer man if he never saw a $8.5 million bid fly on his house in Aspen.
Meanwhile, I have a proposal for a new state song: “The Flight of the Valkyries.” Richard Wagner’s symphonic mayhem perfectly evokes this phase of life in Colorado. We’ve seen it raining fire in the sky. And John Denver struck the match.
“I just play the guitar and write songs.“ —John Denver
Or, just tell me how indefensible my point of view is.
What was John’s fave snack when he was high? Just curious ….
I was wondering about the raining fire in the sky thing... is that a real thing (and if so, what is it??)? Or was it something John Denver came up with when he was high (on the mountain, of course!). Enquiring, um, minds, want to know. I promise your answer won't make me want to move to Colorado. I'm perfectly content with the woods of New Hampshire!