A Region of the Mind: Myth and Place in "Take Me Home, Country Roads"

Abstract: Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver's iconic "Take Me Home, Country Roads" has had a meaningful impact on listeners and continues to have staying power. The song's real significance is its key role in perpetuating constructed myths not only about country music but also about Appalachia, especially in the ways it has been repurposed by and for West Virginians. Drawing on the song's history, music industry distribution, and rhetorical significance, the author argues that "Country Roads" is flexible in both genre and meaning. It is general in calling forth a sense of imagined and idealized place but specific when applied to West Virginia by West Virginians. An anthem and cultural artifact, "Country Roads" is more than a song: for West Virginians, it has become and remains a symbol of identity, positivity, power, and resistance.