I love singing John Denver songs. When I was younger, I could sound just like. But I can’t sing this song without thinking of what he did to her.
Denver admitted to “several incidents of infidelity.”
Took a chain saw and cut their bed in half. From his autobiography, “Take Me Home” he said “Before I knew it I had her on the kitchen counter and my hands were around her throat. And I stopped. I had almost lost control but didn’t.”
He wrote the song in ten minutes on a ski lift to apologize to Annie and to be thankful they were getting back together. But he had been continually cheating on Annie from the first weeks of their marriage, because he was “lonely on the road.”
He obviously did not “die in her arms” because he did not deal with his real issues. “Like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain...” Beautiful word pictures, just the kind of thing the chicks go for, but these words betray his self-absorbed immature thinking about his wife and marriage in general. My wife is not “like the mountains in springtime,” she is a PERSON with frustrations and fears made worse by my foolishness and selfishness.
Cassy Delaney, 2nd wife, told what he was really like. “John Denver tried to destroy us!” she said. The music and the image that is “John Denver” is a nice female fantasy. The actual guy, John Henry Deutschendorf, not nice at all.
The Orlando Sentinel in November 1994 commenting on Denver’s book said it best, “He sees no contradiction that he wrote “Rocky Mountain High” (”They try to tear the mountain down to bring in a couple more, more people, more scars upon the land”) as he was in the process of moving to Colorado and building a home on a previously undeveloped mountainside.” (snip) “(H)e barged into their house one morning, threw her onto a kitchen table and choked her for cutting down some scrub oaks in their back yard. Then he cut up the house with a chain saw.”
“I had almost lost control, but I didn’t.” he says.
What!?
He was that close to killing her!?
Just another OJ Simpson IMHO.
FWIW When Deutschendorf died intestate, his first wife, Annie, was made executor. Calif. law makes song copyrights during the marriage community property so I think she gets the rights to this one and the other early big hits. Please correct me, but if so then she gets the last laugh. The 19 million was divided amongst the three children, the two adopted by him and Annie and his daughter by Cassandra. There was a trust in addition for each of the children and Annie but not for Cass because of their acrimonious divorce. Annie never showed a hint of anger or bitterness. The kids honor their father. Jesse Belle D. got married, seems quite happy.
Two more delicious facts. Denver had bought land in Colorado for a wildlife preserve and open space, but because there was no will, that land was sold. The IRS overvalued his estate and later was forced to refund an overtax to the tune of $600,000.