["You talk to God, listen to the casual reply","Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend","Rocky Mountain high","Saw silver clouds below","He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year","Himself to try and understand","I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky","The Colorado Rocky Mountain high","Saw everything as far as you can see","","Is softer than a lullaby","Now, he walks in quiet solitude","And he lost a friend but kept his memory","Why they try to tear the mountains down","The shadow from the starlight","Rocky Mountain high","","","Rocky Mountain high","Keeps changin' fast, it don't last for long","","Friends around the campfire","If he never saw an eagle fly","He know he'd be a poorer man","He climbed cathedral mountains","","More people, more scars upon the land","Colorado Rocky Mountain high","Left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again","I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky","Might say he found a key for ev'ry door","The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake","Seeking grace in every step he takes","It's the Colorado Rocky Mountain high","Rocky Mountain high","I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky","When he first came to the mountains his life was far away","The forests and the streams","Rocky Mountain high","Coming home to a place he'd never been before","Rocky Mountain high","Rocky Mountain high","And he tried to touch the sun","","Rocky Mountain high","","And they say that he got crazy once","I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky","On the road and hangin' by a song","But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care","To bring in a couple more","And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high","Rocky Mountain high","His sight has turned inside","But his heart still knows some fear","Everybody's high","","Now his life is full of wonder"]
Performed by: John Denver Written by: John Deutschendorf; Mike Taylor
Credits: Deutschendorf, John (Songwriter); Taylor, Mike (Songwriter); CHERRY LANE MUSIC PUBG CO INC (Publisher); DIMENSIONAL MUSIC OF 1091 (Publisher); JESSE BELLE DENVER (Publisher)
"Rocky Mountain High" is a folk-rock song written by John Denver and Mike Taylor about Colorado, and is one of the two official state songs of Colorado.[1] Recorded by Denver, it went to number nine on the US Hot 100 in 1973. (The song also made #3 on the Easy Listening chart, and was played by some country music stations.)
"Rocky Mountain High" is primarily inspired by John Denver's move to Aspen, Colorado, United States three years earlier and his love for the state. The seventh stanza makes a reference to destruction of the mountains' beauty by commercial tourism. The song was considered a major piece of 1970's pop culture, and became a well-associated piece of Colorado history.
The song briefly became controversial that year when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was permitted by a legal ruling to censor music deemed to promote drug abuse. Numerous radio stations cautiously banned the song until Denver publicly explained that the "high" was his innocent description of the sense of peace he found in the Rockies. In 1985, Denver testified before Congress in the Parents Music Resource Center hearings about his experience:
This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains, and also had never experienced the elation, celebration of life, or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something as wondrous as the Perseid meteor shower on a moonless, cloudless night, when there are so many stars that you have a shadow from the starlight, and you are out camping with your friends, your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature's most spectacular light shows for the first time.[2]
After years as an unofficial anthem for Colorado, on March 12, 2007, the Colorado General Assembly made Rocky Mountain High one of two official state songs, sharing the honor with "Where the Columbines Grow".[1] In 2005, the song was performed by a soloist at the NBA all-star game in Denver. The song was also used in an advertisement for Colorado-based Coors beer.
In late 2007, the John Denver Sanctuary drew some controversy after the last lines of the song were removed from the 'Rocky Mountain High" stone.[3]
The song was used memorably as a warning for Death in the 2000 film Final Destination, referencing John Denver's death in a plane crash.
Snowmass, Colorado, a ski resort near Aspen, named a run "Rocky Mountain High," in honor of John Denver.