My mom and siblings and Richard’s would get a kick out of this one because we know that area and watched it change over the years. I imagine the horses’ hooves once clopped along between the farms there.

Fifty years ago, the couple that would later become Starland Vocal Band (who knew they lived in Georgetown!) were trying to come up with a song to sell to Johnny Cash as they were driving through Gaithersburg, Maryland heading to a family reunion on the other side of the Potomac. Going home: now there’s a theme to riff from.

Take Me Home Clopper Road just didn’t quite…have that ring to it. Almost Heaven–that down-home feel? (Re the guy’s home state.) With Boston? Johnny Cash? No.

They opened for John Denver his first night performing in DC and he came to their place afterwards asking did they have any other songs? They pulled out that starter verse and the three of them brainstormed.

The next night they were on stage again and when the audience wanted an encore, Denver said, Well, I haven’t learned the words yet this is brand new so hang on a moment, and got out the scotch tape so he could read off the paper.

From that long and standing ovation that said they really had something there, to his first platinum hit. Even if most of the scenery described is more western Virginia than West Virginia.

None of them had actually ever been to West Virginia at that point but it’s now an official state song.