Back Home Again – John Denver

 

Got introduced to this one by my dad, he used to play this song with his mates in a band made up from workers on a building site. I can remember him playing it when I was a teenager and a few years later, when I picked up a guitar, he taught me how to play it. We even sang it together under an star spangled Arizona sky one night, sat next to a roaring camp fire on a real cowboy ranch. We did a sort of City Slickers night stay in a tent and we had a real character for a guide, Cowboy Dave played every cowboy song you could think of. Then he passed his guitar round the small crowd and we all had a go, what a great sing along.

I've grown to love John Denver, he's a proper songwriter. He writes in such a way you can picture everything he's singing about, real paint a picture with words stuff. Some of the subtle references in this song are so clever, in this one you get the yearning from the singer how much he wants to be back home.

Most of his songs are magical like this, my other favorites being 'Sunshine On My Shoulders' and 'Some Days Are Diamonds'. His other huge song 'Take Me Home Country Roads' has come with me all round the world, somehow it seems to get added to every playlist on any trip I ever take.

I think John Denver is very underrated, he's probably deemed to middle of the road for anyone take offense to anything of his, meaning he gets missed out of music history as he wasn't revolutionary. That is until you hear his life story, he started out as goody two shoes and like all good musicians went of the rails a few times. His disappearance in a prototype plane should be enough for him to be more famous than he is, he's almost become the answer to a quiz question rather than respected for his great songs.

Favourite lyric : There's a fire softly burning; supper's on the stove / But it's the light in your eyes that makes him warm.