Sunday Music: Take Me Home, Country Roads, Good Versions (Not Bad Ones)

It’s a beautiful song. It’s about getting home. It’s about the re-emergence of familiarity when you’ve been away and suddenly, with or without treasure in hand, you’re back in a place where you feel like you belong.

I’ve come home after good things. I’ve come home after bad things. I don’t live on, nor have I ever, on a country road, but I know exactly what John Denver is singing about when he sings this song.

Here’s the OG version, if you need a refresher (and it’s OK to admit, nobody knows all the words to the verses, so hearing them is always like hearing them the first time):

Here’s my favorite interpolation, via Toots & the Maytals who capture the pure spirit of the song like nobody else (plus, the Jamaican inversion here, it’s priceless):

And, I’m obligated as a late-90s teen to share this one, which I also have a pretty substantial soft spot for:

BUT.

What you’ll probably notice is lacking on my list of variations on this nearly perfect human sentiment of a singalong song, is anything by Jellyroll and MGK.

I would tell you why, but Pat Finnerty already said it better.

Spoiler: if you are going to mess with a classic song, are you guys seriously going to mess with the chorus… ugh.

So, enjoy the only critical take on THAT version you’ll need, because this take is up there with his pure Billy Joel episode - changing choruses while you interpolate isn’t just lazy, boring, and annoying, it opens up a dangerous rabbit hole for more mediocrity in trash-pop. Argh.

Here’s a very mediocre quality, but very awesome live version of Toots doing it as a palette cleanse: