As a country music song, “Take Me Home Country Roads” was originally created by the couple Bill and Taffy Danoff. They somehow planned to sell to another singer. Nevertheless, their friend John Denver liked it very much. Consequently, they three worked together overnight to come up with the final draft of the lyric; then they played the song together in a Washington D.C. music nightclub as the encore the next night, 22 December 1970. Surprisingly, they won a storm of five-minute unanimous ovation. As a very nostalgic country music song, it had been touching the hearts of Vietnam War soldiers and their relatives around that time frame. Rapidly since then, people in the states and even worldwide have been listening, appreciating, and singing …show more content…
this song. Since March 2014, West Virginians have chosen this song as an official state anthem in addition to the original three. Almost half a century, country music lovers remark this song as the most touching classical work, and John Denver as the most successful singer and songwriter. Due to the nature of nostalgia, the three verses and the choruses in this song elaborate the mood of a traveler sensing his hometown as emotionally picturesque and memorable, no matter what. In the beginning verse, “almost heaven” mentions that, in the traveler’s heart, the scenery of West Virginia is as peaceful and sweet as heaven.
People enjoy it, even Hillary Clinton quoted, “almost heaven” in a 2008 West Virginia presidential championship. To symbolize the beautiful scenery of the traveler’s hometown, the songwriter extols the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River, which cross the northeastern territory of West Virginia. In the last two lines of that first verse, “Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains, growing like a breeze,” the songwriter yearns for the traditional old lifestyle of the native land, where the life is growing comfortably and slowly like a warm …show more content…
breeze. The following verse narrates the people in the hometown.
“All my memories, gather round her” opens this verse and naturally indicates the nostalgic nature of this song. “Miner’s lady, stranger to blue water” is the lady gathered around by the memories of the lonesome traveler. West Virginia is an inland state, poor residents seldom, if not never, visited the international metropoles, which were usually by the blue water ocean in the days of yore, when air cargo and air travel were not as popular as today. Consequently, the local miners’ lifestyles were pristine, and their characteristic is simple and honest. Therefore, the traveler cherishes them after he experienced the sophisticated, cruel and cunning people in the metropolis. In addition to narrating the nature of the memorable residents, the songwriter then describes the empathetic life there. Because the hometown is full of coal mines, the miners’ working environment is filthy, full of air and water pollution. Due to air pollution, the sky and air turns dark and dusty; however, the residents have to withstand the poor quality of life. Because of water pollution, the locally brewed illicit liquor tastes misty; yet, they can afford only such low quality “moonshine”, which is their slang of illicit liquor. Because the people are unsophisticated and they live a low quality life, the traveler felt
miserable. The third verse describes that the traveler regrets to get back home late. Enthusiastic to travel back home, the traveler might have woke up and hit the road before dawn, or even overnight. While driving, the traveler was listening to the radio, the only entertainment device on the automobile at that time frame. The radio broadcaster would introduce the scenery and folk songs near the radio station. Hearing the different style of folk songs and different scenery, the traveler realized that he was far away from his hometown. The songwriter sung, “Driving down the road I get a feeling, that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.” Due to nostalgic nature, the traveler regretted that he should have traveled back home earlier. The choruses repeat and emphasize nostalgia. Traveling back home is not easy; the road trip takes a very long time, especially if the hometown is inland, far away from metropoles. Hence, while traveling back home, the traveler covets a sense of direction and relies on mountains. In the line where the songwriter mentions “Mountain mamma, take me home,” the mountains are like the traveler’s mother, directing him to go back home safely. In a way, the mountains form a long mountain range, making the traveler think that he is still far away from home; therefore, he strongly feels nostalgic. The traveler’s hometown is always beautiful, even if it owns dusty skies and polluted water. A traveler should go back to his hometown, no matter how distant the hometown is or how difficult the road trip is. Most people contemplate employment as life’s highest priority, and taking a vacation as life’s second priority. Yet, when people work, they feel unrelaxed; in addition, vacationers can met mean or tricky individuals in a foreign place. Based on the songwriter, life’s actual second priority is that people should go back to their hometowns. Going back to the hometown is relaxing because they can enjoy the old life there. If one has not gone back to one’s hometown, one should do so as soon as possible.
Alan Sitomer’s newest fast paced novel Homeboyz is a hardcore suspense story that will immediately put readers on the edge and leave them breathless in the end. Sitomer’s character, Teddy ‘T-Bear’ Anderson is an aloof seventeen year old that doesn’t care for anything other than to avenge his innocent fourteen year old sister Tina’s death, by targeting the infamous gang members of his city. As Teddy’s family mourns and his mother falls into a deep depression, his father Mr. Anderson, also known as Pops attempts to run the dysfunctional ailing household and his linen delivery company by himself. While Teddy observes his family, his desire to seek revenge grows stronger each day until he finally uses his extraordinary visionary skills to come up with a plan.
Being raised in the rural, rolling hills of West Virginia provides a childhood that is unforgettable. Being able to see the four different seasons and how they always change so beautifully into each other is beautiful. The hills are sprinkled with timbered forest of many types of trees, accompanied by different types of wild flowers and wild life. Passing through all of the small towns and hollers, you can still see the small farms that have been passed down from generation to generation within the families.
Drifters by Bruce Dawe This poem is about a family that’s always on the move, with no place to settle down for long, hence the poem was titled ‘Drifters’ to describe this family. ‘Drifters’ looks at the members of this family response to frequently change and how it has affected them. This poem is told in third person narration in a conversational tone. This gives the feeling as if someone who knows this family is telling the responder the situation of this family.
The Appalachian Mountains in the nineteenth century landscapes are often depicted in a grand, glorious, and often spiritually uplifting form. The Hudson River School artists painting in the romantic style engages viewers to tell a story through naturally occurring images as well as interior knowledge of the times at hand.
Plain Truth and Sing You Home are novels both written by Jodi Picoult. They both have plots involving religion and how it strongly affects characters and the court cases they are subjected to. Religion is a topic addressed in the book in both positive and negative light, the religions exposed; Amish and Evangelical are shown to be extremist. The positive lighting can be seen in some of the characters and their innocence such a Katie (Plain Truth) and Liddy (Sing You Home). The negative is spread across the pages, with murder trials and anti-homosexual preaching’s.
When I was little I remember driving across country, going to Florida, and past neighborhoods that were anything but mine. They had old houses that looked like they were going to fall down any minute, real trashy looking. In Colorado, my house was nice and always kept up. I sat in the car wondering what kind of people lived in those run down places and what they were like. The answers came to me years later when I read the book, Famous All Over Town, by Danny Santiago. The main character, Chato, is a young Hispanic boy living in a neighborhood like the ones I saw when I was little. After reading the book, although I never thought I would have anything in common with people who lived like that, I learned that Chato and I have do have similarities, but we have more differences.
“Greasy Lake” by T.C. Boyles tells a story about a group of young adults looking for their chance to be proclaimed “tough guys”. The young adults get their mom’s car and decide to go out to the place called “Greasy Lake”. The lake that use to be a clean lake, was now a hangout place for young adults. The boys had some liquor, pot, and a mission to complete. They were destined to be them crazy “bad guys”. Needless to say their night ends up being a learning experience and the come home different people. Most young adults have to learn some lessons the hard way. Almost, all situations in life are learned by someone’s trial and error. The “Greasy Lake” is a story whose symbols support the main theme: the lake itself represents the boy’s character, losing the keys represent them losing their innocence, and Al’s body represented the results of being “bad guys”.
The mention of the “one” Vermont poem is especially significant, as it implies that all of their poems are essentially the same, suggesting a uniformity of experiences among travelers, that the vast majority of travelers experience the same tranquility. Yet, the speaker’s experiences with nature are uniquely different, as her experience is tainted by racism that is inescapable even in the beauty of Vermont nature. Thus, because of her position in society, she isn’t allowed the same access to nature as every other traveler, making it impossible for her to write that “one Vermont poem” while still staying true to her
One of the cool things about writing for the Aquarian is that you get to hear a lot of really great music that doesn’t always surface within the commercial channels. New Jersey’s Freddie Fry fits right into that category with his unpretentious rock and roll sounds that might be more at home somewhere in Kentucky then down on the Jersey Shore. He isn’t plugged into the local hero squadron and prefers to roam deep within the Howard Hughes ghost-like realm. Even if you’ve bumped into Fry on the street, you probably wouldn’t recognize the man or the skill he brings to the table. While doing my research for this article, I had to resort to the Vulcan mind meld to get him to let loose with some anecdotes and stories to get his background into proper perspective for the reader.
The story, “Good Country People,” by Flannery O’Connor, is a third person limited narration which means the reader can only look into the mind of only a few of the characters. Those characters are Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga, or Joy. Schmoop discusses a deeper understanding about the narrator of the story.
As the song comes from a slavery ridden world, roughly the late 1800’s, the person who interpreted and wrote down the song uses an uneducated tone by cutting off words or using incorrect grammar. By using this diction he embodies the oral aspect of the lyrics, seeing as folksongs and tales are always passed down or taught orally. The original authors, being slaves that were still entrapped, used metaphors like the drinking gourd so that the slave owners would just shrug it off as nothing. The song is also heavy in imagery, “The river bed makes a mighty fine road, dead trees to show you the way…” Slaves would need to be given landmarks so they knew they were on the correct path as well as the constant of the Big Dipper.
Montana today is place that is still very similar that of a hundred years ago. Ranching and farming out east, mining still goes on in Butte, fishing is big along the western rivers, and now there is a new boom, with oil and natural gas throughout the state. As John Steinbeck said, “I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana it is love. And it’s difficult to analyze love when you’re in it.”
In the opening verse of the song, the speaker discusses the need to see her childhood home at least once more before moving on with her life. She shares with the current homeowner some of her experiences while growing up in the house. For instance, she says, “I know they say you can’t go home again, but I just had to come back one last time.” This shows that the speaker realizes that returning “home” is going to be a different experience than it was when she lived there, but she cannot resist the temptation of a final visit to the “house”. The speaker says that “Up those stairs in that little back bedroom, is where I did my homework and learned to play guitar. And I bet you didn’t know, under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard.” This indicates some of the significant memories the speaker has of her time in the house, such as honing her...
Discoveries are made when a person is placed outside their comfort zone and can encompass various realisations about the person’s self and the people around them. Through his exploration of the refugee experience in light of Australia’s divided view on “boat people” Ivan O’Mahoney, in his 2011 TV documentary series Go Back to Where You Came From (henceforth Go Back...) presents an image of the revelations that accompany a journey in to the unknown parts of life. Similarly, Melina Marchetta’s description of a young girl’s HSC year as she comes of age and is placed in unfamiliar circumstances in Looking for Alibrandi highlights the abrupt nature of discoveries when in alien circumstances. Both composers describe the impact revelations have on our perceptions of the people around us and the
Fortunately, I wake every morning to the most beautiful sun lit house. I sit on my porch sipping coffee, while I drink in an atmosphere that steals my breath away. Rolling hills lay before me that undulate until they crash into golden purple mountains. Oh how they are covered in spectacular fauna, ever blooming foliage, and trees that are heavy with pungent fruit. Green it is always so green here at my house. Here where the air lays heavy and cool on my skin as does the striking rays of the sun upon my cheeks. I know in my soul why I choose to be here every day. Pocketed in all the nooks and crannies of these valleys and hills are stately homes, rich with architecture resplendent. Diversity is the palate here; ...