RCA 0548
Producer: Milt Okun
Track listing: Back Home Again / On the Road Grandma’s Feather Bed / Matthew / Thank God I’m a Country Boy / The Music Is You / Annie’s Song / It’s Up to You / Cool An’ Green An’ Shady / Eclipse / Sweet Surrender / This Old Guitar
August 10, 1974
1 week
“I was raised on country music,” says John Denver. “My dad was a big fan of country music. Back Home Again was meant to be my country album. ‘Back Home Again’ was very much a country song, as were ‘Grandma’s Feather Bed,’ and ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy.’ The other ones weren’t necessarily country, but they came out of a sense of being in the country or being on the farm.”
Denver also went with acoustic instrumentation to give the album a down-home feel. “There’s not an electric guitar on the album,” he notes. For Denver, who toured frequently, the title track was literal. “It’s about coming home from the road and having all the things that I ever longed for as an Air Force brat,” he says. “It was epitomized by a woman, a partner in life.”
That woman was Denver’s wife and college sweetheart Ann Martel, who inspired “Annie’s Song,” another track on the album, which turned out to be a hit. The song came to Denver while he was skiing. The couple had gone through a rough period in their relationship but had emerged closer than ever. “I skied down this run and right back onto the lift,” Denver recalls. “As I was on the lift, heart was pounding, my thighs were burning, and then I started to notice how great it is to be alive. The air was so fresh and smelled so great and the color of the sky was so blue. It filled up my senses. And then I began to think about what other things fill up your senses and I thought of our relationship, how it was like a night in the forest and the mountains in springtime.”
By the time Denver reached the top of the lift, he had the song almost completely written in his head. “I skied straight to the car, walked upstairs to get my guitar and started singing this song,” he recalls. On July 27, 1974, “Annie’s Song” became Denver’s second Number One single. Two weeks later, Back Home Again became his second consecutive album chart-topper.
“Annie’s Song” wasn’t the only deeply personal track on Back Home Again. Denver calls “This Old Guitar” the “story of my life in three minutes.”
“Thank God I’m a Country Boy” was another track that some Denver fans might assume was autobiographical, but it wasn’t written by Denver. The song was written by John Martin Sommers, a friend of Denver’s from Aspen who led a bluegrass group called Liberty. “I had heard the song and invited them on tour with me as an opening act,” Denver says. “But when I heard the song, I knew it was made for me. It had so much energy and it was a great song for concerts.”
Denver’s original version of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” appeared on Back Home Again. “I never thought of it as a single,” Denver admits. However, the song didn’t become a hit until nearly a year later, after RCA released a live version of the song, culled from the 1975 album, An Evening with John Denver. The live version of “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” became Denver’s third Number One single on June 7, 1975, and later that year, he would once again top the album chart.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of August 10, 1974
1. Back Home Again, John Denver
2. Caribou, Elton John
3. Before the Flood, Bob Dylan / The Band
A. 461 Ocean Blvd., Eric Clapton
5. On Stage, Loggins & Messina