John Denver's Colorado State Song

This folk rock hit from the 1970s by one of Aspen, Colorado's best-loved celebrities symbolizes the Rocky Mountain lifestyle. It is now the state's official anthem.

I wasn't the only one thinking about John Denver this week. On Sunday, I wrote a piece about the John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen, Colorado. The next day, the state's lawmakers voted to make Denver's hit song, Rocky Mountain High, the new Colorado State Song.

It will now share the honor with Colorado's traditional anthem, Where the Columbines Grow. The trouble was, nobody could remember the tune, let alone the words, to the old one. Hum a few bars of Denver's song, however, and Colorado and its majestic mountains come instantly to mind.

Since it was recorded in 1972, Rocky Mountain High has inspired more people to visit the state over the years than we'll ever know. That was certainly true for me. I'd been thrilled by my first sight of the Rockies when I was a child, but it was that photo of John Denver on an album cover, sitting in a tall-grass meadow playing his guitar, that symbolized the laid-back lifestyle I sought as a young adult.

The music and the ideal it represented drew me to Colorado. Like Denver, I came and made it my home. So it's only fitting that Rocky Mountain High finally gets the recognition it deserves – it's been the unofficial state anthem for years.

I would have loved to have been at the Colorado State Capitol on Monday when Jim Salestrom, a backup singer for Denver's old band, serenaded the House of Representatives with the song. Many in the usually serious chamber clapped or sang along. And then they voted 50-11 in favor of Rocky Mountain High. The song also swept the Senate with a vote of 26-8.

This being the 'noughties' instead of the '70s', a few spoilsports squawked about a possible reference to drugs in Denver's lyrics, in particular the line "friends around the campfire and everybody's high". But the lawmakers sensibly defeated an amendment that would have poured cold water on the accolade by spelling out that the word 'high' referred to altitude. It's hardly necessary in the Mile High City, or a state so beautiful that being high on life is a natural state of mind.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Bob Hagedorn, a Democrat from the Denver suburb of Aurora. But he wasn't the song's first champion. A month after John Denver's tragic death in a plane crash at the age of 53 in October 1997, Kari Neuman and her fellow fourth-graders in Fort Collins wrote letters to their legislators to try to make it the official state song.

This year is the 10th anniversary of Denver's death, and the time is right for Rocky Mountain High to take its place in Colorado history. As Denver would have said: "Far out!"

To read about Aspen's John Denver Sanctuary, click here.