JOHN DENVER - WINDSONG 1975

You can hear wind scraping over bare rocks and miniature plants of the alpine tundra, violently bifurcating through forests of coniferous trees, and you can feel wind swirling over the churning waters of a river, and you can see wind ripple and flow in waves through the deciduous leaves of aspen.

How would someone translate this invisible warmth into a song? John Denver begins by metaphorically expounding upon the strengths and human-like emotions and cries of the wind, announcing that the wind offers wisdom and to listen to her, finally culminating into an aural humming, representing the wind itself. It is a beautiful testament to the shifting and settling of air.

This is the original recording of the song, and John Denver re-recorded it twice in his later years (e.g. on the Very Best of album), taking advantage of newer and better recording materials. While these versions are like listening to Denver in surround-sound-super-stereo, and are almost more passionate in verse, the original track on the Windsong album will always be the first way original fans heard it. It commands more respect with its age.

Windsong, as an album, is filled with Denver's trademark layered-hums and drawn out singing styles that, I feel, make the songs more atmospheric and spiritual. This includes Cowboy's Delight, an almost haunting approach to mountains and the (to me) light that strikes them during different hours of the day. From the darkness of the Hour of the Wolf, to the dim outlines of the zodiacal light; the golden-pink bathing from the sunrise, and the noon sun sparkling off gold and muscovite, and biotite and garnets in granite, to fiery rocks in the sunset and purplish-pink lulls of alpenglow, to the silvery-blue moonshine or red-blue-silvers of starlight...

Also spiritual are Looking for Space, I'm Sorry, the pseudo-minimalist Spirit, and Fly Away (to a lesser degree). Your heart will soar at Calypso's plein-aire oceans and Love is Everywhere's upbeat folk/bluegrass fiddlin'! Shipmates and Cheyenne is a slower song with a beautiful chorus, Song of Wyoming is a calm end to the album (so calm, I can never recall the tune), and Late Nite Radio is a fun quirky truck-drivin' tune. As others have pointed out, Two Shots doesn't really belong here, but it's grown on me and I appreciate it for what it is. The song just starts off a bit too loudly.

Windsong is an immediate classic, with tracks that have unfortunately been released on many other albums...ones I got to first, so I feel this album isn't entirely new to me. But I sure wish I had been around when it was released. I would've done exactly what I do today: pop it in the tape-deck of my car, and drive off into the sunshine.
By Christopher S. Loucks "piano macabre" (Colorado Front Range)

Tracks :

Windsong 4:03
Cowboy's Delight 3:06
Spirit 3:37
Looking for Space 4:02
Shipmates and Cheyenne 3:29
Late Nite Radio 2:47
Love Is Everywhere 3:35
Two Shots 3:34
I'm Sorry 3:26
Fly Away 4:09
Calypso 3:39
Song of Wyoming 3:17

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