Words on Music

As a blogger with several hundred essays, commentaries and other literary detritus to my, and others,’ credit I have often found inspiration from the music of my life.  I recently submitted this piece to a local newspaper that had put out a call for short essays on the impact of music in their lives.

Singer-songwriter John Denver (1943-1997) has provided some of the grist for the work of my last few years.  One of his comparatively less popular songs that I have played for many years on the soundtrack of my mind was his 1983 duet with Emmylou Harris, Wild Montana Skies.

 

I like this song because it tells the story, in its essential components, of the journey—even odyssey—of many people’s lives.

 

The song tells of a boy who was born in the Bitterroot Valley of Montana of a young single mother.  She died not long after his infancy and he was taken in by relatives.  They raised him on love and their prayers and taught him the skills to bloom where he was planted—in this case as a farmer, one who learned to love the land.  Like many youth, however, he left their home in his twenty-first year and moved to the city to pursue other paths.

 

Like the wild geese who fly far from their nativity but feel the pull to eventually return to their roots or early values the man . . . 

On the eve of his twenty first birthday, he set out on his own
He was thirty years and runnin' when he found his way back home
Ridin' a storm across the mountains and an achin' in his heart
Said he came to turn the pages and to make a brand new start

Now he never told the story of the time that he was gone
Some say he was a lawyer, some say he was a John
There was something in the city that he said he couldn't breathe
There was something in the country that he said he couldn't leave

Now some say he was crazy, some are glad he's gone
Some of us will miss him, we'll try to carry on
Giving a voice to the forest, giving a voice to the dawn
Giving a voice to the wilderness and the land that he lived on

Oh, oh, oh, Montana, give this child a home
Give him a love of a good family and a woman of his own
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a light in his eyes
Give him the wild wind for a brother and the wild Montana skies

Our roots usually draw us back home—even back to ‘Country Roads,’ or the ‘Wild Montana Skies.’

Perhaps the man was a little off ‘dead center’ on the continuum of judgmental normalcy (aren’t we all?—most are ‘outliers’ in some misunderstood dimension of their personality), nevertheless “some of us will miss him, we’ll try to carry on, giving a voice to the forest . . .” or whatever positive contribution his (our) legacy provided.

John Denver had a sensitivity and a true knack for the things of the heart (in his music and poetry, if not in his own personal life).  I have enjoyed many of his songs.  He was designated Poet Laureate of Colorado in 1974 and though not a Republican, was awarded the Presidential World Without Hunger Award by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.