Country roads by John Denver
“Country roads” is a famous country/folk song by American singer John Denver. The song was released in 1971.
John Denver is a singer from New Mexico. His songs usually belong to country genre or folk music and it mainly talks about honest emotions like homesickness and nature, especially in the song Country roads where he sang about the peacefulness of West Virginia.
This songs belongs to country music because of its use of acoustic instruments (mainly guitar), its lyrics about life relaxing life in West Virginia, its beautiful rural landscape like mountains/trees and the singer’s homesickness about West Virginia.
When first making the song, songwriters Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert came up with the song about rural life and homesickness when driving down a road in Gaithersburg, Maryland in late 1970. With John Denver, they later worked and produced the song Country roads and released it in 1971. The song was originally written for life in Massachusetts where one of the songwriter was from, but to make the lyrics rhyme better, the songwriters changed Massachusettes to West Virginia because of the syllables.
In this analysis I will talk about the genre of country music and musical choices in the song.
Genre and History:
Country music is a genre of music that came from rural places in Southern and Western USA.
Country music can have history before the 18th century where immigrants from Europe and people from Africa. The people living in rural areas brought together the acoustic instruments from their backgrounds and used them to sing songs about daily life or ballads that was later popularized. The melody of first country music came from the Europeans and instruments like the Banjo came from the Africans in the USA.
In 1920s as radio broadcasted country music, more people recognized it as a genre. By the end of 1930s to 1940s, country music became more popular and was recognized as an important part of American culture.
Key characteristics: Country music has lyrics usually about honest emotions like feelings for a place or love and things about everyday living. Most songs in the genre are not too intense like other genres like Rock music. Instruments in country music is usually traditional and acoustic like the guitar, banjo, harmonica.
The song Country roads do get defined as country music because of the topic of its lyrics, as well as its use of instruments. Though it is not the exact same as traditional country music as some purists classify it as more folk music because the song is not actually made by someone who experienced country life in the countryside.
Musical Analysis
(I don’t know why is there a blank in front of everything I wrote sorry)
Melody: The melody of “Country Roads” by John Denver is in A major. The main motif of the melody is a simple “A B C#”, “C# A B” making it very easy to remember. The melody of “A B C#”, “C# A B” came back several times through the song.
Rhythm: Country roads is in 4/4 time signature with a tempo of 82. Most chords lasts 2 bars. The song did not have change in time signature or tempo.
Harmony: The song mostly uses a chord progression of A, F# minor, E, D A and did not seem to use a lot of other chords.
This chord was heard twice in the verse before the main motif of “Country roads, take me home, to the place….” In the main melody or maybe chorus, the chord progression changed to A, E F# minor, D. These two chord progressions was heard alternating throughout the song as its Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus…
The outro and bridge part are the only parts that change the order of these chords with the bridge being a chord progression with F# minor first then ended in a E7 so the next chord could transition to the chorus of A, E, F#....
The outro alternated between E and A major a few times then ended on an A major chord, just like the start of the song.
Instrumentation: The singer’s voice sang the main melody alongside other voices and female voices sometimes, especially in the outro.
The acoustic can be heard playing melodies supporting the singer’s voice and some broken chords/ scales also to support the voice. A bass played the base notes of each chord to support the chord. Several percussions can be heard in the song; it is steadily playing quarter notes in 4/4. The banjo is also heard alongside the guitar to serve the same purpose but add some different sounds in the song to make it less boring.
Texture: The song is Homophonic. Instruments did not play their own solo parts or the own unique melody that stands out a lot. They all supported the voices of the singers. I believe this is to ensure people would focus on the emotional lyrics than the music itself.
Dynamics: There is no dramatically loud or quiet part in Country Roads, the whole song maintained the same loudness. The voices are the loudest while the other instruments are slightly quieter but equally clear so nothing is sounding too mysterious or hidden.
Structure/form: Country roads have a structure of Verse, Chorus, Verse 2, Chorus, bridge, Chorus, outro. Verses talks about the beauty of West Virginia like “Blue ridge mountains, Shenandoah River.” The chorus repeats “Country roads, take me home” to emphasize the singer’s homesickness and how their connection to West Virginia. The bridge also highlighted the homesickness (“Driving down the road, I get a feeling That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday”)
Overall analysis :
Instruments support the lyrics by playing steady beats and chords. The lyrics presented the ideas of the song to the audiences and it gave a sense of homesickness by using low and relaxing tempo.
Country roads represented country music by introducing audiences to the classic themes of rural landscapes and honest emotions, these are important parts of traditional country music. The use of acoustic instruments like guitars and banjos in the song also represented the typical instrumentation of country music.
One significant example of historical factors that made Country road what it sounds like is the use of the Banjo. The banjo first came from people from Western Africa in America, it is an instrument that originated from African stringed instruments. Since country music fused together many types of cultural music, it is used in Country roads. Another example is because the singer was from Massachusetts, but to make the song more musically successful other than being a pure culture expression, they changed it to West Virginia so could have 4 syllables to sound more natural.
Overall, the song used many significant traditional country music elements to create a sense of nostalgia and personal connection with West Virginia though the singers did not come from West Virginia, it portrayed a great imagination of what it would feel like to miss there.
