Verne Hill
World Soccer: Team USA and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”
World Cup Soccer. Team USA will play Belgium TONIGHT (July 6) in the Round of 16 at 8pm on Fox. https://www.foxsports.com/soccer/united-states-men-team
World Cup Bible Reading Challenge. The YouVersion Bible App is encouraging readers to keep the Bible App open for seven days in a row from now thru July 19, to build a healthy Bible reading habit. www.crosswalk.com/headlines/
John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was a HUGE hit last Wednesday night with Team USA and their win over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
According to The Athletic, FIFA officials added “Country Roads” to its postgame playlist last month. The song made its debut at the end of Team USA’s second match 2-0 win over Australia in Seattle. The song was an immediate hit, both inside the stadium and on social media. “Country Roads” has long been a mainstay at West Virginia University football games, where Mountaineer fans serenade the team after home victories. “Country Roads” co-writer Bill Danoff telling the Associated Press that he is honored that the U.S. team has embraced the song, and that John Denver (who made the song a hit) would have loved all the celebration using the song.
Back story about the song
*Danoff has said the inspiration for the song came from a drive he and his then-wife, co-writer Taffy Nivert, took along Maryland’s winding Clopper Road to attend a family reunion in Gaithersburg, about 25 miles east of the West Virginia border. “I just started thinking about back roads – those country roads. *Danoff actually grew up in western New England (not West Virginia) but he was familiar with Appalachian music broadcast from Wheeling, West Virginia’s WWVA radio station, which he listened to while growing up in Springfield, Massachusetts. *Danoff said he and Nivert were hoping to sell the song to Johnny Cash, but when they played an unfinished version one night in their apartment for their friend John Denver, the singer-songwriter persuaded them to let him record it instead. The song, released in 1971, turned into Denver’s biggest hit. John Denver died in a plane crash in 1997.
