Next time you bear John Denver singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” ---or hear the group Spank perform it in the short filmed advertisement for the video game Fallout 76, which has become a hit over the past year or so since it came out — keep in mind that it wasn't anywhere in West Virginia that inspired the great hit, but rather a road in Montgomery County.
Songwriter Bill Danoff, in a 1997 article he wrote for The Washington Post in memory of Denver, who'd just died, said he had begun writing the song while driving to a family reunion along Clopper Road, near Gaithersburg. He and his future wife, Taffy Nivert, completed the song in December 1970 with Denver's help. “Back then,” Danoff wrote, Clopper Road “was still a country road”.
The three first sang the song the following night at Washington D.C. 's The Cellar Door, where Denver was headlining. “When we first sang the song together, ”Danoff wrote, “it seemed as though the audience would never stop applauding. Next show, the same thing. We knew we had a hit.”
In “Take Me Home,” his 1994 autobiography(自传) Denver wrote, in the small hours of the morning, sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve, in their basement apartment in Washington, D, C., we wrote “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” It became my first Number One record.
No word on why Maryland lost out to West Virginia in the lyrics. Perhaps "Maryland” just doesn't sound like the countryside as its western neighbor. More likely, the three syllables(音节) that make up our state's name just don't fit; the meter the songwriters had worked out.
Some sources suggest Denver considered using “Massachusetts” instead of “West Virginia”. Good thing he didn't, or crazed Red Sox fans might be singing it between matches. A song to Massachusetts also would never have been named a state song of West Virginia, a status “Take Me Home, Country Roads” has enjoyed since 2014.
8. Which of the following injected Bill Danoff the inspiration to write “Take Me Home,
Country Roads”?
A.Maryland. | B.West Virginia. |
C.Massachusetts. | D.Washington D. C. |
9. What was the audience's reaction when they first heard “Take Me Home, Country Roads”?
A.People all didn't fancy its lyrics. | B.Most people assumed that it was noisy. |
C.They made bad comments on the singers. | D.They were all fascinated by it. |
10. What does Para, 5 mainly convey?
A.Why Maryland was unused. | B.Why the song was so popular. |
C.More achievements of the singers. | D.A new way to understand the song. |
11. What can be learned about “Take Me Home, Country Roads” from the last paragraph?
A.It is popular among Red Sox fans. |
B.It is a state song of West Virginia. |
C.It earned Denver a national award in 2014. |
D.It was played most frequently in Massachusetts. |