HE FOUND THE BEGINNING OF A SONG UNDER A METEOR SHOWER. 35 YEARS LATER, COLORADO MADE IT PART OF THE STATE’S OFFICIAL HISTORY. John Denver was camping with friends near Williams Lake when they stayed outside to watch the Perseid meteor shower. There was no studio. No audience. Just a dark Colorado sky and bright streaks passing above the mountains. That was where Denver found the image behind “rainin’ fire in the sky.” But that night did not give him a finished song. He carried the moment with him, slowly building the words around the feeling he had found in Colorado. Guitarist Mike Taylor helped shape the music, and together they turned one quiet camping memory into “Rocky Mountain High.” Released in 1972, the song reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Millions who had never stood in the Rockies could suddenly understand why Denver felt at home there. Yet the song was not simply praising a beautiful place. One verse also warned about tourism and development changing the mountains he loved. John Denver died in a plane crash in 1997. Then, on March 12, 2007, Colorado adopted “Rocky Mountain High” as its second official state song. A private night beneath the stars had become something an entire state chose to keep.

He Found the Beginning of a Song Under a Meteor Shower. 35 Years Later, Colorado Made It Part of the State’s Official History

Some songs begin in a studio. Others begin in a moment so quiet it almost disappears.

For John Denver, the spark for “Rocky Mountain High” came during a camping trip near Williams Lake in Colorado. He was out with friends on a night when the Perseid meteor shower crossed the sky. There was no crowd, no spotlight, and no plan to write a hit. Just mountains, cold air, and the kind of silence that makes people notice what they feel.

In that darkness, Denver found the image that would stay with him: “rainin’ fire in the sky.” It was not yet a song, only the first shape of one. He carried the memory with him and slowly built the lyrics around it. Guitarist Mike Taylor helped shape the music, turning a private outdoor moment into something larger and lasting.

A Song That Captured More Than a View

When “Rocky Mountain High” was released in 1972, it climbed to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. For listeners far from Colorado, the song made the state feel vivid and close. It sounded like open space, changing weather, and the feeling of finding home in a landscape that seemed bigger than the person standing inside it.

But the song was never just a postcard. One verse carried a warning about tourism and development changing the mountains Denver loved. That tension gave the song a deeper edge. It was a celebration, but it was also a plea to protect what makes a place feel alive.

John Denver did not just write about Colorado. He wrote from inside it, with wonder and concern in the same breath.

From Personal Memory to Public Identity

John Denver died in a plane crash in 1997, but the song kept traveling. Decades after that meteor-shower night, Colorado made a lasting choice of its own. On March 12, 2007, the state adopted “Rocky Mountain High” as its second official state song.

The decision gave official recognition to something many people had already felt for years: the song had become part of Colorado’s identity. It was no longer only John Denver’s memory. It belonged to the state, to its history, and to everyone who had ever heard it and pictured the mountains.

A Quiet Night That Became a Public Legacy

What makes the story endure is its simplicity. A camping trip. A shower of meteors. A line that arrived before the rest of the song. From that, John Denver built a piece of music that crossed generations and eventually entered Colorado’s official record.

It is a reminder that some of the most lasting art begins in ordinary moments. Sometimes a state anthem starts as nothing more than a person looking up at the sky and feeling changed by what he sees.

THE CREW FILMING THE HIGHWAYMEN AT NASSAU COLISEUM IN 1990 HAD ONE RULE: JOHNNY CASH COULD ONLY BE SHOT FROM ONE SIDE OF HIS FACE. It was March 14, eleven days after Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson opened the first tour they ever ran as a group, out behind Highwayman 2. The cameras in Uniondale were not there by chance. Lou Robin, Cash’s longtime manager, said everyone knew this was the show to film: a big crowd, and four men who had finally been on the road together long enough to trust each other onstage. They gave the crew two hours and thirty-nine minutes. They raided each other’s solo catalogs, “Folsom Prison Blues,” “Always on My Mind,” “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and kept stepping back so the next man could take a verse. At the end of Kristofferson’s “The Pilgrim: Chapter 33,” he pointed at each of the other three and grinned. Jessi Colter, Waylon’s wife, said they were always on it, but that one was fantastic. And Johnny Cash sang every minute of it with one side of his face turned away from the lens. Robin gave the reason in the liner notes, decades later, when the complete film was finally released in 2016. It was not the lighting, and it was not vanity.

WAYLON JENNINGS RECORDED 12 SONGS WITH ONLY HIS GUITAR, HIS VOICE AND ROBBY TURNER’S BASS. TEN YEARS AFTER WAYLON DIED, THE MAN BESIDE HIM RETURNED TO FINISH THEM. During the final years of Waylon’s life, he spent hours in the studio with Robby Turner, his longtime musician and close friend. Waylon sang and played guitar. Robby played bass. Together, they recorded the foundation of 12 songs and discussed the instruments that would eventually be added. But Waylon’s health was failing. He died on February 13, 2002, before the album could be completed. The recordings remained untouched for years. Then Robby received Jessi Colter’s blessing and brought several of Waylon’s longtime musicians back into the studio. Their guide was simple: finish the songs as Waylon would have wanted them. The work was not easy. While adding steel guitar to one track, Robby looked down and saw one of his tears fall onto the instrument. In 2012, the finished album was released as Goin’ Down Rockin’: The Last Recordings. Waylon was gone. But the men who had once played until he smiled came together one last time and finished what their friend had started.

JANIS JOPLIN PLAYED THE GUITAR PART HERSELF ON THE ONLY NO. 1 SHE WOULD EVER HAVE, AND SHE NEVER LIVED TO HEAR IT ON THE RADIO. She cut “Me and Bobby McGee” during the Pearl sessions in 1970, in the weeks before October 4, when she was found dead in a Hollywood hotel room at 27. Kris Kristofferson, who wrote the song with Fred Foster, was off in Peru working on a film. Bob Neuwirth had taught it to her. Kristofferson didn’t know the recording existed. The day after she died, her producer Paul Rothchild asked him to come to the office and listen. He said he walked all over Los Angeles afterward, in tears. In March 1971 the record reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, one of the first posthumous chart-toppers in the history of that chart, and the song that made his name as a writer. Then came the part nobody prepares for. Every audience wanted to hear it, and he couldn’t get through it. So he sat down with his friend Donnie Fritts and they played Joplin’s version over and over, until he could listen to it without coming apart. He sang it for the rest of his career. He said he thought of her every single time.

CHET ATKINS WAS THE GUITARIST NASHVILLE TRIED TO COPY. THEN JERRY REED CAME ALONG, AND EVEN “MR. GUITAR” BEGAN LEARNING FROM HIM. When Jerry Reed arrived at RCA in the mid-1960s, Chet Atkins was already one of the most respected men in country music. He was a legendary guitarist, a successful producer and the man who had helped shape the Nashville Sound. But Chet heard something different in Jerry’s playing. Jerry did not pick the guitar like anyone else. His fingers attacked the strings with unusual rhythms, sudden pauses and complicated patterns that seemed almost impossible to repeat. Instead of asking Jerry to become more conventional, Chet encouraged him to sound like himself. Then something remarkable happened. The established master began incorporating some of Jerry’s musical ideas into his own playing. Chet recorded Jerry’s songs, shared the studio with him and treated the younger guitarist not as a student, but as an equal. In 1971, their album “Me and Jerry” won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. Jerry had entered Nashville hoping to earn the respect of one of his heroes. He left behind something even greater. He had given “Mr. Guitar” a few new things to learn.