# Does EVERYONE know 'Country Roads'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [May 13, 2025, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317 "2025-05-13T02:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/81 "2025-05-14T05:03:03Z")
> **[Americana music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americana_music)** > > Americana (also known as American roots music) is an amalgam of American music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States of America, with particular emphasis on music historically developed in the American South. > The term "Americana music" was defined by the Americana Music Association (AMA) in 2020 as "…the rich threads of country, folk, blues, soul, bluegrass, gospel, and rock in our tapestry." A previous 2016 AMA defin... ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/82 "2025-05-14T12:16:07Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > or, as Einsteins Hund said, “-ish”. @Einsteinshund did say ‘ish’ so yes, I did not need to add my own speculation as to the German suffix. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/83 "2025-05-14T13:34:06Z")
> [@DaveUnknown](#): > > Most notably the Cretaceous-Paleogene event, which was the single most massive extinction known, 66 Ma. I thought the [Permian-Triassic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_extinction_event) mass extinction was the biggest. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/84 "2025-05-14T14:24:37Z")
Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert were a folk duo. They wrote a lot of Country Roads. John Denver came by and loved the song. He helped them finish it and recorded it. John included Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert on his tours just to sing their parts in Country Roads. Later John featured them on his label as The Starland Vocal band. I think it’s the perfect story telling song. Every country has a rural countryside and they can strongly identify with _Country Roads_. Link [Co-Writer of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ Dispels Myths Surrounding Song’s Origins – NBC4 Washington](https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/co-writer-of-take-me-home-country-roads-dispels-myths-surrounding-songs-origins/2525010/) ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/85 "2025-05-14T14:58:38Z")
Yes. Good cite. TY ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/86 "2025-05-14T17:47:31Z")
And the road is [Clopper Road/MD117](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Route_117) in Maryland. I drive along that road a lot and it’s still very rural, and a great motorcycling road. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/87 "2025-05-14T22:29:10Z")
This is mentioned in _Interior Chinatown_, the book and the TV series, both excellent, as an anthem for immigrants. It’s less obvious what’s happening in the TV show, so the book sheds some light on it. I’ll let author Charles Yu do the talking. > Maybe it’s the dream of the open highway. The romantic myth of the West. A reminder that these funny little Orientals have actually been Americans longer than you have. Know something about this country that you haven’t yet figured out. If you don’t believe it, go down to your local karaoke bar on a busy night. Wait until the third hour, when the drunk frat boys and gastropub waitresses with headshots are all done with Backstreet Boys and Alicia Keys and locate the slightly older Asian businessman standing patiently in line for his turn, his face warmly rouged on Crown or Japanese lager, and when he steps up and starts slaying “Country Roads,” try not to laugh, or wink knowingly or clap a little too hard, because by the time he gets to “West Virginia, mountain mama,” you’re going to be singing along, and by the time he’s done, you might understand why a seventy-seven-year-old guy from a tiny island in the Taiwan Strait who’s been in a foreign country for two-thirds of his life can nail a song, note perfect, about wanting to go home. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2025, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/88 "2025-05-14T23:15:05Z")
OK, I’ve never encountered any music that labeled itself as “Americana”, but that list of ingredients looks good to me. I was afraid, when I saw the name, that it’d be faux-patriotic garbage like “God Bless the USA”. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/89 "2025-05-15T00:38:28Z")
I first heard the name “Americana music” in 2003 when the Chicks (a.k.a. The Dixie Chicks) decided that, since some country music fans and radio stations didn’t like the political statements they made, it would be better to bill themselves as singers of Americana music. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/90 "2025-05-15T00:44:37Z")
IOW … New! Improved! Country/Western music with less Hate and Bigotry! Americana FTW. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/91 "2025-05-15T01:45:30Z")
> [@Edward\_The\_Head](#): > > And the road is [Clopper Road/MD117](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Route_117) in Maryland. I drive along that road a lot and it’s still very rural, and a great motorcycling road Interesting, that’s right by my sister in law’s house. I’m pretty sure I’ve driven on that road, but unfortunately in a rental minivan, not on my motorcycle. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/92 "2025-05-15T17:04:54Z")
It was a big hit with the crowd when I heard it sung in a pub in Dublin on a New Year’s Eve several years ago. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/93 "2025-05-15T18:11:42Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Gocomics has, alas, put their Doonesbury archives behind a paywall, otherwise I’d link to one of the Doonesbury strips where John Denver is singing (usually that song!) down by the creek behind Uncle Duke’s house, which pisses Duke off, of course. Heh, I came into reference this. There’s a strip, when Duke was ambassador to China, where a military band does a John Denver standard and Duke says, ‘take me now, Lord.’ (although I think that might have been Rocky mtn High). ---
**Author:** ![Oly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oly/32/8255_2.png) [@Oly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oly)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/94 "2025-05-15T20:40:18Z")
East German communists knew it. Quite a while ago, when Berlin was still a divided city, I was sitting on the bank of a canal at the far southern edge of the free side. The canal was the border, and on the opposite bank was the wall. Beyond the wall were some low buildings. I could never tell what they were, but I thought it might be some sort of factory complex or processing plant, as sometimes during my walks along the canal I’d hear noises from over there that suggested that. This day was a quiet sunny Sunday morning in Springtime. As I sat listening to the birds, I heard, highly amplified from the other side of the wall, the opening twangs of “County Roads”. It kept going, sounding a little off from the original and sung in English with a German accent, but not too bad. The song went all the way through. Then it was back to just the twittering birds. I sat there a while longer, wondering if there’d be another song or some other sort of commotion. But nothing. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2025, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317/95 "2025-05-15T22:46:42Z")
The blue water reference had me puzzled for years. Until I looked at a map. West Virginia is [landlocked](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/landlocked-states-of-the-united-states.html). This verse is so well crafted. It evokes memories that most people feel strongly. > [@](#): > > All my memories gather 'round her > Miner’s lady, stranger to blue water > Dark and dusty, painted on the sky > Misty taste of moonshine, teardrops in my eyes [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-everyone-know-country-roads/1018317.md?page=4)