Country Roads, North Tyrol

13 August 2025

The band did play, a tune I knowCountry Roads, so far from home¹I think back to that mountain homeNot West Virginia but North Tyrol

My soul reflects on many livesAs I gaze upon these highland skiesMountain Mama, Jungfrau²So far apart yet same in soul

The band did play that Country RoadsNot far from home, now I knowNext I heard to much surpriseAnother tune my heart does cry

I'll See You In September³, the bardman did ringAnd I think about my summer loveNot torn apart, but patched in twaineThese Alpine heights our love compare

In souls long past we must have beenAlong these roads we could have beenSo long apart our souls did yearnA summer’s love, two souls return

’Cause country roads are more than stoneThey’re flesh, they’re blood, they’re love, they’re homeSo take my hand, oh my true loveAnd walk with me to lands unknown

For Alpine Peaks and Appalachian StreamsNone compare to thee, my love

Notes

By the editor.

“Take Me Home, Country Roads” was written by Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert with John Denver, who finished it on 30 December 1970, and released as a single in April 1971 (album Poems, Prayers & Promises). The title line came to Danoff and Nivert on Clopper Road in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Danoff said he was thinking of western New England. A West Virginia song written by outsiders has already learned that home is a feeling. source ↩
The Jungfrau, “maiden,” is a 4,158-metre peak in the Bernese Alps of Switzerland, not in Tyrol. North Tyrol is the larger, northern part of the Austrian state of Tyrol, whose highest mountain is the Großglockner at 3,797 metres. The poem pairs the two ranges as “so far apart yet same in soul.” source ↩
“See You in September” was written by Sid Wayne and Sherman Edwards. The Tempos, a Pittsburgh group, recorded it first in 1959 (No. 23 in the US); the Happenings' 1966 version reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. source ↩