Vol. 8 - Take Me Home Too Soon: John Denver - Ecologist/Humanitarian/Actor/Pilot/Musician

As the editor of this blog, I have mostly refrained from making comments that one could construe as “editorial,” but my work with these particular manuscripts coincided with not only the final flight of the space shuttle Discovery but also the civil unrest in Libya and the disasters still unfolding in Japan.  John Denver, no doubt, would have weighed in on these delicate issues.   Who can forget his homage to the Calypso and its mission of exploration, collaboration and, most importantly, peace?  (The irony of using a retooled minesweeping vessel for these missions cannot escape mention!)  Ah, that joyous yodel of chorus rivals the Woo Hoo! of Blur’s “Song 2” for its simplicity and emotional efficacy.   Would John have commemorated the space shuttle in the same way?  Would he have rushed to Japan via private and fuel efficient plane to lend a hand?  Would he and Jimmy Carter, armed only with folksy wisdom and the power of what Dolf calls the “toothy white grin," have negotiated the peace and compelled Muammar Gaddafi to abdicate?  Dolf and Holiday wrote the following exchange in a different decade, but like them I too am struck with how cyclical history remains and how the loss of great lives leaves us with much  greater holes.  Enjoy and reflect. – ed.

Holiday writes:

Dolf:

Experimental aircraft!

Being a fan of soft rock is not easy in these disquieting times; it never was, my friend.  But being a soft rocker is far more difficult.  We feel too much!!!  Consider the tormented genius and careworn life of Mr. Henry John Deutschendorf, whom most know as John Denver.  Dead at 53, alone in his experimental aircraft  after years spent battling DUI convictions, enduring failed bids to reach the Mir space station, and watching his creative powers stripped and replaced by an ego-consuming concern for the whole world.  How could he wield a guitar when his beloved crystal waters barely reached the sea due to thirsty and morally bereft Los Angelinos?  How sing, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” when his own country stood in awe of an actor turned President who was destroying the planet and the middle class in one doddering faux swoop?  How sing with a Muppet when real furry animals like his beloved polar bear were being threatened by a greed for oil?  Where are champions like this today?  Where?  One man, a man whose spirit still haunts Monterey Bay, couldn’t do it alone.  We should use John's story to rally our compatriots.  Time has passed but the battles remain the same!  Oh, John, it takes a dorf!

 



...like bourbon over ice.

 

Dolf replies:

Thank you my dear friend for championing the much maligned John Denver.  A man petite of stature yet big of heart.  Hair like a golden helmet and face round as a pancake.  A simple man whose words poured out of him like bourbon over ice—bolstering the collective spirits of the young and old during his prime.  I think back to times spent as a child listening to his great live (An Evening With...- ed.) album—popping and hissing on my father's hifi.  “Music paints pictures and often tells stories/some of it magic, some of it true" opens the first tune.  Think about that in relation to today's heavy world.  What does the popular music of today speak to us of?  I’m ashamed and too frightened to go in to that dissertation.  Let’s simplify it by saying, not much.  Maybe if we took to heart the man's theme of conservation, respect of the Earth and kindness towards each other—this world could be a better place.  I want to live in a world where Saddam and his people live in harmony.  Maybe instead of dropping bombs in that war-torn land, we should drop recordings of John's music.  Mission Accomplished, indeed.  The pilot John was would no doubt have appreciated this. His music is timeless, enduring --- able to soothe the most restless of souls.  We need to return to this quality of entertainment, for see what our world has turned to in its sad wake.  I leave you this, friend:

You fill up my senses

like a night in a forest

Like the mountains in springtime    

like a walk in the rain

Like a storm in the desert

like a sleepy blue ocean

You fill up my senses

come fill me again.”

And I mean that.  John, come fill us again...

Holiday concludes:

Again, Dolf, you have provided me with just the right sentiment and another tempering tale of soft rock’s power.  Still, I cannot listen to John’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and not shed a tear for our country’s immense loss.  John was equal parts seer and seeker, it seems.  It saddens me that he saw the sinking of the mighty Calypso but not its raising and ongoing restoration!  What a metaphor for a life taken short.  John’s spirit still lives, however.  It lives in all who embraced his life and his life in song. Oh, but how I wish he too could rise from the sea and lead us to a better place.  His docile, albeit vigilant, ghost still secrets the Pacific coast, I am told.  I have little doubt.  On my visit to his Monterey memorial service in 1997, I believe I saw his spirit in the faces of children and seniors alike.  Every time I place a capo on a weathered acoustic guitar, or watch a single-engine plane cut the sky in two, I feel John emerge from the spaces in between.  The highs and the lows.  The mountains and the valleys.  The earth and the stars.  That is where he lives now.  He simultaneously belongs to the quiet abyss and the limitless cosmos. 

Aye Calypso the places you've been to,

the things that you've shown us,

the stories you tell

Aye Calypso, I sing to your spirit,

the men who have served you

so long and so well

Godspeed John, Godspeed. – ed.