Rocky Mountain High

Denver and Mike Taylor wrote it, and Denver recorded it in 1972 as the title track of Rocky Mountain High. Denver told concert audiences in the mid-1970s that it took him nine months. It was inspired mainly by his move to Aspen three years before and by his love of Colorado. It reached number nine on the Hot 100 in 1973, ranked 29 on that year's year-end chart, and was certified Gold by the RIAA in April 2017 for digital downloads.

The line about everybody being high briefly made it controversial, after a legal ruling allowed the FCC to censor music deemed to promote drug abuse and some radio stations banned the record. Denver explained that he meant the peace he found in the Rockies, and he repeated the point when he testified at the 1985 Parents Music Resource Center hearings. On 12 March 2007 the Colorado General Assembly made it one of the state's two official songs, with the House vote passing 50 to 11.

Live and covers

setlist.fm lists it as Denver's most played song, with 196 performances, and it is on the live album An Evening with John Denver at 5:04. Lana Del Rey sings "Like Rocky Mountain High, the way John Denver sings" in The Grants on her 2023 album Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.