If you watched the aftermath of the World Cup match between the US and Australia last week you heard the jubilant crowd break into song, as soccer crowds often do. Their selection was a little surprising, though. Why were fans in Seattle singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” a song widely associated with West Virginia?
Basically, because that’s what soccer crowds do – they take up well-known popular tunes, usually modifying the lyrics to insult rivals or celebrate a favorite player. For example, back in the ’90s, after Newcastle signed French star David Ginola, their fans came up with this variation on the Kinks’ “Lola”:
He makes us sing and he makes us dance
He plays on the wing and he comes from France
La Ginola, la la la Ginola, La la la Ginola
So how did “Country Roads” enter the picture? Thank the Premier League fans of Manchester United, who replace “country road” with “United road” when they belt it out (no doubt inspired by Toots Hibbert’s reggae cover; he replaced West Virginia with West Jamaica). Scotland’s fans, the Tartan Army, sing it at away matches, like the one their team played in Boston, and it spread from there. It’s a safe bet we’ll be hearing it again whenever the US team plays.
Most of the people singing it have never been to West Virginia, but that’s OK – neither had Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert when they wrote it. Nivert was driving on a back road in Maryland while Danoff strummed his guitar, thinking about his childhood home in Massachusetts, a word he considered “unmusical.”* They finished it with John Denver after opening for him at the Cellar Door in Washington. They played it for him and he liked it so much they performed it together the next night as an encore.
The song appeared on Denver’s third LP, 1971’s “Poems, Prayers and Promises,” and became his breakthrough hit, reaching No. 15 on the Hot 100. Danoff and Nivert performed as Fat City, and early pressings of the single credited the performance to John Denver and Fat City. Danoff and Nivert went on to form the Starland Vocal Band, whose one hit, “Afternoon Delight,” hit No. 1 during the Bicentennial summer of 1976.
*The Bee Gees didn’t think so, and their ballad “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” kept “Country Roads” from reaching No. 1.
As noted above, Toots and the Maytals recorded a popular reggae version in 1972.
Among the hundreds of artists who’ve covered it, the most unusual might be Lana Del Rey, who released it as a promotional single in 2023 after a snippet of it turned up on the internet. It was rumored to be an outtake from her album of country covers, but last year she started playing it live, so it might appear on her next LP.
