"ALMOST HEAVEN, WEST VIRGINIA!' WERE THE FIRST WORDS I EVER SANG BEFORE AN AUDIENCE. AN AMERICAN GIRL, IN AN AMERICAN SCHOOL, WITH THE WORD COAL IN THE SCHOOL'S NAME! JOHN, LOVED WEST VIRGINIA, COLORADA, AND THE UNIVERSE! I SAY AL GORE IS GROOVEY!
JOHN WOULD HAVE SAID AL GORE IS-- FAR OUT!
JOHN WITH HIS BLONDE HAIR, BLUE EYES WITH LENNON GLASSES, HE WAS A YOUNG, OLD HIPPIE! HILLARY WILL FIND WEST VIRGINA ALMOST HEAVEN IF SHE WINS! SOME WILL VOTE, BARACK, I CONCEED. BUT CHANGE HAPPENS SELDOM IN THE COAL MOUNTAIN TOWNS.
TO WATCH A JOHN DENVER DVD, IS TO SEE A REAL AMERICAN WITH REAL AMERICAN MUSIC! GOD GAVE HIM THE GIFT OF GENUINE AMERICAN MUSIC! HE SAID, HE KNEW, HE WAS USING A GIFT HE HAD TO RETURN AT THE END OF HIS LIFE. THAT SOMEONE BIGGER THAN HIM HAD DEEMED. I THANK GOD FOR HIS TALENT AND KINDNESS!
GOD BLESS JOHN DENVER!
GOD BLESS HILLARY!
GOD BLESS WEST VIRGINNY!
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
It was a knee-jerk reaction to claims that certain song lyrics caused America's teens to do certain undesirable things (if I recall correctly, it was prompted by the unsubstantiated claim that if you played certain Beatles and Black Sabbath records backwards, they contained hidden Satanic messages - how absurd is that?).
Anyway, the Senate panel, led by none other than Albert Gore, Sr (whom I also have a deep abiding affection for), thought "Yeah, John Denver!". But when he said what he had to say, they were not just stunned into silence, but dropped the whole thing.
Basically, Denver said, "When I wrote 'Rocky Mountain High', I was talking about the (high) feeling I get of being up in the mountains. But my record was banned by many stores and radio stations because of the use of the word "high". Denver said, "Sir, this is a First Amendment issue - we cannot have any kind of censorship whatsoever".
The panel said, "But Mr Denver, don't you think that it would be better if we had a little bit of censorship?" As Dee Snider of Twisted Sister described it, the Senate panel was falling all over themselves to try to somehow differentiate John Denver's use of the word "high" in a song lyric with The Doors' use of it in "Light My Fire" (which, as a fellow Doors fan, you will know was nothing to do with drugs; Morrison was describing the "high" of making love with somebody who really turned you on (albeit the puritans of the mid-60s didn't like that connotation, either). Denver stood firm, repeating his commitment to the First Amendment, and strongly complimenting one of my personal favorites, Frank Zappa, as being one of the most forthright and talented lyricists of the 20th Century.
Denver gave Gore the slap-down, and Denver was right. Talk about nepotism, Al was heading the Senate panel for a case his wife brought. But the Gores have moved forward with the times, like I think we all should. The past is the past, the future is the future. We can love the 60s and 70s and still embrace the 2000s.
We were much younger in those days, and saw nothing wrong with "When Doves Cry" or "Like A Virgin". As we get older, I think we all have a secret wish to narrow the boundaries of free speech. I try my best to be open-minded but still take offence to many of the rap song lyrics. I take offence at thinks e.g. Don Imus says. I have always taken offence to pornography, and my offence grows stronger down the years.
I was young then, but I can still remember how some radio stations banned Elvis records because he gyrated his pelvis, and not only that, but how small communities in my native Midwest used to have large bonfires where they actually burned records by Elvis and other rock and roll pioneers.