The stage was simple, designed to resemble a wooden board that resembled the siding of any barn, anywhere across America. It could have been the barn behind my house, or the one that my cousins have down in Georgia. It could have been a barn in Colorado or even West Virginia. Nothing remarkable at all, except that in its starkness, there were a myriad of instruments littered about like children’s toys. An upright bass stood tall in the middle, but strewn about were the instruments of America: a banjo, a hammered dulcimer, drums, a mandolin, an autoharp, several acoustic guitars, and, of course, at least four fiddles.
As we sat waiting for the show to start, my mom and I had no idea what to expect. Except that Ron Ottino had told us the show was going to be awesome. And so we had purchased tickets to see the Weston Theater Company perform “Almost Heaven: John Denver’s America.” I had never seen John Denver in person, but I knew his musical catalogue as the background of my childhood. A true child of the late 70s, I grew up sitting on the living room floor with my mom and dad singing folk songs while my dad strummed the guitar.
And while family sing-alongs would eventually become encapsulated by the songs of Madonna and Janet Jackson, the early years were formative. I know the lyrics of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and memorized all nine questions from “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Our first golden retriever was named Sunshine after the song my father had sung to my mother during their courtship, and two dogs after that was aptly named Annie (although I think it was more from the movie on my sister and my part, but I learned later she was named after an entire album.)
Tears started slowly rolling down my face around the third song, as I figured out the historical context of the songs I had grown up with. I mean, I studied history in school but had somehow never put 2 + 2 together. Folk songs were fun things that you sang at home while hanging out with the family. I never sang them as songs of protest or searching – to me, they were always just about love. But this play gave them meaning, for me, anyway. Obviously, they were written with the heartache of Vietnam America.
An America divided, an America where a war tore families apart, waged both abroad and amongst ourselves. An America replete with conflict, where families argue at the dining table and out in the streets. It threw me for a loop when the actors broke into “Draft Dodger Rag,” something that I had never heard before, but it was obvious that just about every other person in the audience was very familiar with the lyrics. Having been born at the end of the Vietnam War, I had missed the emotional trauma of the previous decade.
But through the performances, reality hit me like a punch to the gut. And all I could think of was how John Denver and the entire folk music scene are what’s missing about our America right now. Do folks know that as they shout out the lyrics of “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” they are shouting for the return of our troops from Vietnam? Or that “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is mourning the farewell of a mother and her son as he heads off to war? Did you know that “Rocky Mountain High” was banned because radio stations thought it was about doing drugs like the damn protesting hippies? Does it matter that they don’t have the original meaning, or are the songs themselves enough to inspire empathy without the backstories?
Judging by my reaction, I’m pretty sure these songs are so much stronger with their historical context, especially in today’s political climate. Man, do we need John Denver right now. Protecting our public lands and speaking out for human rights. If he had lived longer, would he have discovered Vermont and written a song about how beautiful our greenery is? What kind of songs would he have written if he had lived past 1997?
We will never know the answer, but we can begin by studying his well-thought-out lyrics, played on his old guitar. As we have one year left until the Semiquincentennial of the United States, perhaps it is time to reflect on our commitments to each other: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and sit down with John Denver’s music.
Merisa Sherman is a longtime Killington resident, global real estate advisor, municipal official, and Coach PomPom. Find her on socials @femaleskibum or Merisa.Sherman@
SothebysRealty.com.
