I was entranced.
Mesmerised. The very first time I heard it.
Mesmerised. The very first time I heard it.
It was called Annie’s Song and it was composed
and sung by John Denver for his wife, Annie Martell Denver. But I listened to
it with as much feeling as if it were my own song.
A love song sung for me.
Apparently Denver wrote the song in July 1973,
in just ten-and-a-half minutes on a ski lift to the top of Ajax Mountain, in
Aspen Colorado. The physical exhilaration of the ski lift, there on top of the
world, coupled with the beauty spread before him inspired him to think about
his wife.
Wow!
Faced with such awe inspiring beauty, most
people would have pulled out their Kodaks and their Polaroids, intent on
capturing the moment for posterity.
Not Denver.
He lived in the moment, steeped himself in it,
leaving posterity and our musical legacy the richer for it.
He just sat and soaked in the sensations that
the moment inspired in him, letting those sensations guide his thoughts,
letting himself get carried away, drift away gently.
And so the song came to him.
A song that spoke of a love so pure, so
pristine, that it had to be likened to nights in the forest, and mountains in
spring time, and walks in the rain, and storms in the desert, and sleepy blue
oceans.
Things that were here long before we were.
Things that will continue to be long after we
are gone.
Things so monumental and awe inspiring, they
could only have been made by God. The most state-of-the-art factory couldn’t
produce beauty like that, nor replicate the sensations that such beauty could
inspire.
The most heart-stopping metaphors all lined up
to re-create the grandeur of love, which in its purest form is magic itself.
And yet, all too often, we ignore that magic, and
take the love for granted. Instead of soaking it in, and soaking ourselves in
it, we fiddle with our cameras, adjusting the frame on the viewfinders, or
click inane selfies that we can display for the joy of getting thumbed up.
As I listened to the song, I would shut my
eyes, and imagine that Annie’s Song was an ode not just to Annie, but to me.
And to every man and woman who aspired,
dreamed, prayed for such love.
It was so perfect.
I wished for it, imagining it to be some sort
of a prayer.
“You fill up my senses,” he said, and that is
just what Annie’s song did to me. My ears would burn with the intensity it
inspired, the whoosh of the oceans dancing in my ears.
That, I imagined, was how love should be.
When it hit you, it would fill up your senses,
and leave room for nothing else.
It would fill you up, and then overflow all
around you, drenching you in its sweeping power.
Denver’s voice itself seemed to soar high above the mundane world.
Annie's Song seemed to elevate love -- that much-abused feeling
that so often ends up shriveled and abused, having lost its beauty, reduced to
a four-letter word.
It stirred my senses like few other
songs have done for me, either before or since. When it played on Saturday Date, I used to wish the anchor
reserved it for the last song. It was a finale, and I could go to bed with its
echoes still throbbing within me. Any other song played after that, I used to
think, would have undone the effect.
There were no pulsating rhythms in the song. The
melody itself was easy to sing.
It started soft and easy and then gradually built up to a crescendo, before gently bringing you down to earth again.
After all these years, Annie's Song can still leave me feeling slightly breathless and uplifted.
