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Lessons from Take Me Home, Country Roads

By Morris, Sarah L.

Lessons from Take Me Home, Country Roads Books

Lessons from Take Me Home, Country Roads

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Description
You may have heard it at a football game, in an advertisement, or on the radio on a road trip far from home. You may have sung along on a rooftop in Thailand, at Oktoberfest in Belgium, or with a Japanese cover band. It may have moved you to dance at a wedding or cry at a funeral. Regardless of where it plays, the song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is ubiquitous, unmistakable, universal. Written and recorded by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver in 1971, the song continues to resonate across cultures and audiences, carrying meaning beyond naming and inviting transformation for a range of rhetorical purposes in nearly 300 recorded English versions and in more than 20 languages. This book examines "Country Roads" as it illuminates a universal sense of belonging to place even as it obscures the literality of the place it names. In examining "Country Roads" as anthem, text, artifact, and rhetoric, this work untangles ideas related to place, belonging, identity, and pedagogy. Sarah L. Morris uses the Welsh term hiraeth, which is an existential longing for an idealized, sometimes imaginary home, as a governing framework for this work. She explores the song in various contexts, such as how it pertains to West Virginia geography and heritage and the diversity of these beliefs, external perceptions of the state, concepts of home and belonging, and the song as a phenomenon across different media platforms. "Take Me Home, Country Roads," while being about West Virginia, has registered as a global phenomenon.
Product details
Binding:
Paperback
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
264
Release Date:
2025-10-01
Publication Date:
2025-10-01
Publisher:
West Virginia University Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1959000543
ISBN13:
9781959000549
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
321 g
Height:
127 cm
Width:
203 cm
Thickness:
16 cm
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