Annie's Song

I was hooked onto John Denver when one of my very dear friends gave me a cd full of songs in which the opening number was Annie's Song. The first thing I did after hearing the song god-knows how many times, was to take out my bike, go to a cyber cafe (which was 8 km away...I was in Auroville then), go to Wikipedia, and check out everything on Denver. Later, I also heard Rocky Mountain High, Follow Me, Leaving On A Jet Plane, Thank God I'm A Country Boy, Fly Away, Like A Sad Song and Take Me Home Country Roads among others. And every time, he was awesome! He and his songs were, thus, an instant hit with me.

But Annie's Song was special. Sometime after all this, I gotta know about a tale, a story associated with this song which made me believe in love again.

It seems because of his whirlwind world tours and dead-busy schedules, his wife, Annie, was about to give him a divorce. Denver was in Paris at that time. Annie sent him a two-word-telegram saying, "Leaving, John". He took the next plane to NYC. He wrote this song on the plane, gave a tune to it, and the first thing he did when they met was sing this song to her. With a voice like his, I'm not surprised that Annie forgot everything about her telegram!

I don't know how far this story is true. Seems like a hopelessly romantic fable. Somewhere, deep down though, I hope it's true. The story goes really in sync with the mood of the song.