I don’t think that is particularly surprising. It is an American, anti-capitalist song. It makes perfect sense that the Soviet regime should have encouraged its popularity in Russia, and once something like that gets entrenched in popular culture, it can stick around long after the conditions that first fostered its popularity have changed.
By contrast, I can’t think at all why “Take Me Home Country Roads” should have struck such a chord in Germany, no more than a million other catchy songs of nostalgia.
Wasn’t it actually Olivia Newton-John who had the biggest hit with it, though? She has German connections. Her grandfather was German physicist Max Born, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics.
I always wondered how the f*** this song got to be a popular German drinking song. My friends said that even people who spoke no English would yell out the part that’s missing in that version.
There are some interesting things about John Denver and “Take Me Home, Country Roads”. John Denver was mostly of German ancestry. He was born in Roswell, New Mexico (as was Demi Moore, so maybe there is something alien about those two). He grew up in many places since his father was an Air Force officer. Eventually John Denver settled in Colorado:
In fact, the song has little in common with the state of West Virginia except the title:
It was written in a folk club in Washington, D.C. by Denver, Bill Danoff, and Taffy Nivert. Danoff and Nivert had just gotten back from a family reunion in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which was more rural then than it is today. Specifically, they were thinking about Clopper Road there. The locations mentioned in the song are actually mostly located in Virginia rather than West Virginia. Denver, Danoff, and Nivert didn’t know much about West Virginia.
The only time I’ve seen this activity before was old footage of Coney Island or the crazy unsafe rides. I guess drinking lots of beer makes it safer somehow.
I don’t really know how to respond in this thread other than to say John Denver was the shit.
As a kid going to camp in the late 1970s and early 1980s, John Denver was everywhere. Leaving On a Jet Plane was often played over the camp PA in the morning. TMHCR, and Thank God I’m a Country Boy were often sung by the entire camp after lunch or dinner. The songs are easy to learn and have a timeless, universal quality to them that almost anyone can relate to.
This thread is very enlightening to me. I thought Denver’s music was buried as deeply as his body – I can’t remember the last time I heard any of his tunes on the radio. I had no idea he had such an international following.
I have some alternate lyrics for next year’s Oktoberfest.
Almost Heaven
Schleswig-Holstein
Kaiser Wilhelm
Lederhosen fashions!
Life is Old there,
Older than the Zee!
Younger than the mountains
in Southern Germany.
Autobahn
Take me on
To the Place
to Goosestep On.
Western Poland
into Russia
Take me On
Autobahn
I hear his voice, in the morning hour he heils me.
Der radio reminds me of my oath of loy-al-ty
And drivin’ on to Moscow, I get feelin’
Shoulda been retreatin’
yes-ter DAY!
Yes-ter DAY!
The focus on lyrics is something I often find quite baffling. The reason the song is popular is that it’s catchy and easy to sing a capella while drunk. Certain feelings of generalized *Heimweh *perhaps add a little to the appeal, but I can assure you that nobody at Oktoberfest gives a shit about West Virginia
