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The name Chicago originates from "Checagou" (Chick-Ah-Goo-Ah) or "Checaguar" which in the Potawatomi language means 'wild onions' or 'skunk'. The area was so named because of the smell of rotting marshland wild leeks (ramps) that used to cover it."
Funny how we use words sometimes and never think of their original meaning.
So are we to expect the next major flood of immigration to be from Croatia? And it's not like they change the words, to Croatian Mama, for example. They want their Country Roads to take them home, to West Virginia!
They do need some practice, though. They know the chorus pretty well, but I heard a lot of "La-la-laaaa, la-la-laaaa" ....
It's not just Croatia. Whenever we go to the pub here (I won't admit how often ) that song gets played at least once by any live band, and if the juke box is on, Heaven help us all; once I counted five repeats in a single night.
Plenty times folks have seen me and come to ask me for help with the words --the miner's lady line being the biggest mystery. Tasting 'moonshine' is a head-scratcher too; here moonshine is (sort of) poitin.
"So have you ever BEEN to West Virginia?" I ask all the time. Nobody else here has...and I don't think they know where it is, exactly. Perhaps the 'almost heaven' thing brings it across as a sort of metaphysical state of being...like purgatory, or a dreamscape...or just a made-up place in a country song. Maybe the miner's lady lives with Puff the Magic Dragon...and taking place in a pub, all this information has to work its way through a filter of Crested Ten whiskey and pints of Guinness.
Let them wonder, and stay put. We're hoping to be Blue Ridge-bound July 15th or so.
The Blue Ridge Mountains aren't in West Virginia, and the Shenandoah River is just barely, flowing along the very eastern boundary of WV, into the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.
But I guess Allegheny Mountains and Blackwater River just didn't have the right sound to them.
The Blue Ridge Mountains aren't in West Virginia, and the Shenandoah River is just barely, flowing along the very eastern boundary of WV, into the Potomac at Harpers Ferry.
But I guess Allegheny Mountains and Blackwater River just didn't have the right sound to them.
Exactly the reason for my laughy-face by 'Blue Ridge'. Can't help but wonder if Mr. Denver was delivering a tongue-in-cheek dig at everyone who confuses "West (by God) Virginia" with simply "west(ern) Virginia" ?
Or, as he was born in ROSWELL New Mexico perhaps it was simply a newly-arrived alien's misinformation... ??
(God rest him, I honestly mean no disrespect...but really, I've been told he was born in ROSWELL...)
(God rest him, I honestly mean no disrespect...but really, I've been told he was born in ROSWELL...)
Wikipedia agrees with that, Lily... born in Roswell, NM, as Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. The story I heard about the lyrics is that JD came across a couple of struggling songwriters in a joint in the DC area, they had the bulk of the song written. JD and they stayed up all night and came up with the finished product. Guess they didn't have a map handy
My favorite line is I should have been home yesterday.
There originally was a different second verse, which never made it into the recorded version:
In the foothills hidin' from the clouds,
Pink and purple, West Virginia farmhouse.
Naked ladies, men who looked like Christ,
And a dog named Pancho, nibbling on the rice.
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) that song gets played at least once by any live band, and if the juke box is on, Heaven help us all; once I counted five repeats in a single night. 
perhaps it was simply a newly-arrived alien's misinformation... ??
