About Take Me Home, Country Roads (Original Version)

"Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known as "Take Me Home" or "Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver about West Virginia. It was released as a single performed by Denver on April 12, 1971, peaking at number 2 on Billboard's US Hot 100 singles for the week ending August 28, 1971. The song was a success on its initial release and was certified Gold by the RIAA on August 18, 1971, and Platinum on April 10, 2017. The song became one of John Denver's most popular and beloved songs. It has continued to sell, with over 1.5 million digital copies sold in the United States. It is considered to be Denver's signature song. The song has a prominent status as an iconic symbol of West Virginia, which it describes as "almost Heaven". In March 2014, it became one of the four official state anthems of West Virginia. A cover version of the song, a collaboration between Copilot Music and Sound and the vocal group Spank, was commissioned for and featured in both the teaser and full E3 2018 trailers for the 2018 video game, Fallout 76, whose plot events are set in West Virginia. Released as an iTunes-only single on July 4, 2018, the song reached #1 on the iTunes singles chart. It debuted at #41 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart that week and at #21 on Billboard's Country Digital Songs the following week. The official YouTube upload of the original John Denver recording, initially uploaded in 2013, would later edit its description in response to the song's use for the game. In Australia, a promotional Fallout 76 vinyl featuring the cover was included with the December 2018 issue of STACK Magazine exclusively from retailer JB Hi-Fi.