Yeah, you know who it is, just not by his real name above. I guess Deutschendorf sounded too much like Douchebag for John Denver to have used professionally but for my money it sure would have suited him much better. Never could stand him nor his music. Whenever I hear his Thank God I’m a Country Boy I always think “Thank God You’re Dead.” (I’ve mentioned my dislike of TGIACB before too (click here.)
And speaking of God, I even tried to watch JD in the movie Oh God and barely made it thru that. Had it not been for George Burns I wouldn’t even have made it as far as I did.
I found that Denver had his first #1 hit today when Sunshine on My Shoulders topped the charts in March 1974 (click here.) It should be noted that other tunes at the top of the charts in March of 1974 included Blue Swede’s Hooked on a Feeling (Ooga Chucka), Terry Jacks with the execrable Seasons in the Sun, and Cher’s Dark Lady. Not much competition there would you say? With tunes like that vying for air time, little wonder then that disco was able to worm its way onto the music scene.
And now that I have sufficiently trashed the D-bag Dude, here’s a trivia question for you – name the only artists to have written/co-written two songs which went on to be declared official State Songs. Stephen Foster did it first with Suwannee River (Florida) and My Old Kentucky Home (Guess?) but our boy did it most recently with Rocky Mountain High (Colorado) and Country Roads (West Virginia) (click here.) Doesn’t matter, I still regard him as a douchebag.
There was one other song in the top five on this day back in March 74 that wasn’t too bad. It was by an American Indian group named Redbone whom I guess it was ok for them to run around and be called that back then.
