Music Memories during my 3rd Year. From my 2nd Birthday on Wednesday, the 20th of February 1974, through to Wednesday, the 19th of February 1975
John Denver
Annie’s Song
Charting in the year of 1974, on the 11th of August, is John Denver with the single Annie’s Song.
By the age of two,..
…I was really beginning to take in the music that I heard, and this song I remember hitting all the good places, literally filling up my senses, like a warm soft embrace.
No one had the single in my family, or peripheral environment, it was just played out on the radio, or on the TV; and when it did, I loved hearing it. Couldn’t get enough of it, in fact. I thought the song was absolutely beautiful.
The inspiration…
…had been gifted to John, while at home in Aspen, Colorado. Coming after an acute period in his marriage at the time.
Hitching a ride on to the ski-lift and taking in the scenery all around him while ascending up to the snowy slopes, by the time he’d skied back down, the song was almost fully formed in his head. He then went inside and wrote it down. Around ten minutes later, the song was basically finished.
I always wonder who that female voice sighing is, just after the line “like a night in a forest”, probably just one of the backing singers, but I like to think it’s his wife, the subject of the song itself.
Before this song…
…had been released over here in the UK, John hadn’t really been that well known. Although he’d had one of his songs hit the charts the previous year in 1973, around my first birthday in fact, it hadn’t been sung by him, as his version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” had only released in the U.S., so the version we got to know over here in the UK was sung by Olivia Newton-John.
On the back of that success,..
…his manager had then booked John to present his own 6-week entertainment shows for the BBC; and although he was tentative about committing to such a project initially, grew into the role and eventually looked back on that time fondly.
It also gave a British audience a chance to experience that hit song, sung by the man himself.
Now, over a year later,..
…there was this new tune; and for me, as well as probably many others, it would become the song most would identify him to in this country. A song so pure, so simple, so easy on the ear, and so full of love and beauty, that I personally will never tire of ever listening, however many times I chance upon it, again and again. It always makes me smile.
The “A” Side
The “B” Side
“Top Of The Pops” appearance.
Many thanks go to the following YouTube Channels for providing the chance to hear these songs once again.
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