Frank Ahrens, a principal at BGR Group in Washington, D.C., is a native West Virginian and a graduate of West Virginia University.
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” has become the national anthem of American sports. If you’re surprised, you shouldn’t be. It’s been cooking for a long time. It is West Virginia’s — maybe the United States’ — greatest soft power, completely organic cultural victory.
This has become the case, win or lose. The Seattle Stadium crowd celebrated the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team with “Country Roads” after its 2-0 victory over Australia, and the Los Angeles Stadium crowd consoled the team with the song after its 3-2 loss to Turkey. What does a sentimental song that begins, “Almost heaven, West Virginia …” have to do with World Cup games played before mixed U.S. and international crowds all over the country? On paper, nothing. But culturally, it turns out to be a perfect fit. That’s why spectators were able to sing along, word for word.
“Country Roads” was written in 1970 by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver, and performed most memorably by Denver. It was a hit at the time. Annoying sorts will note that the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River are actually mainly in Virginia. But Denver performed “Country Roads” to open West Virginia University’s football stadium in September 1980, sealing the song as the state’s own, haters be hanged.
The song’s potent nostalgia is universal: Going home, to a place where one belongs. Home can be a place, or it can be something else — a family, a team, a community. That’s something understood by West Virginians or the Tartan Army, fans of Scotland’s World Cup team, who have been belting it out at Fenway Park. The song has the remarkable power of feeling patriotic, yet apolitical, no matter where you’re from.
The musical structure of “Country Roads” drives the powerful pathos of the lyrics. The chorus’s chord progression — G, D, E minor, C — is one of popular music’s most common and packs an emotional punch. Minor chords typically denote a sadness, or bittersweet feeling, and, in “Country Roads,” the shift to the minor chord coincides with the lyrics, “home,” “yesterday” and even “momma.”
One of the earliest evidences of the song’s universality came in 1995, when a version of “Country Roads” was the connective tissue between the eventual lovers in the hit animated Japanese film, “Whisper of the Heart.” The film helped embed the song into the culture, and by 2019, Japanese fans were singing it spontaneously during World Cup rugby matches.
John Denver toured extensively throughout Asia, helping to cement the song’s popularity there. I worked for years in Asia and can vouch that the song is a staple of Korean karaoke and a go-to for generations of overworked Asian salarymen, longing for a place they belong. Whenever I traveled to other countries — Germany, Brazil, Oman — locals usually asked where in the States I was from. When I replied, “West Virginia,” they invariably replied, “Almost heaven!”
So global is the song, there are versions by a Jamaican rocksteady band and a native Hawaiian singer (“Almost heaven, West Makaha”). There is a Hindi version, a Spanish version and a Hebrew version. As the years passed, new media technologies acted as force multipliers for the song’s popularity — cable television, YouTube, streaming, social media.
But it all leads home to West Virginia, and that’s what makes us natives so proud. “Country Roads” got a second life beginning in the mid-2000s, thanks to cable sports television. Following home victories, West Virginia University football players began staying on the field and singing the song, as fans in the stands stood, swayed from side to side, and did the same. ESPN and other networks usually aired at least part of the postgame sing-along. It was a new school tradition, but the way fans so comfortably slipped it on made it feel a century old.
It was just before the 2026 World Cup kicked off that the song got its next big boost, this time from social media, and again, thanks to the Mountaineers. After WVU’s opening-game victory in this year’s College World Series, some two minutes of the baseball team and its fans singing “Country Roads” were televised. The song drove an organic PR tour de force for the university and the state. Athletic Director Wren Baker reportedthat across all social media platforms, there were 155 million views and impressions of the fans and team singing the song.
Soft power scholars and countries may study this phenomenon for years. But they won’t be able to replicate it. You cannot reverse engineer “Country Roads.”
Nobody sat down in 1970 intending to write the anthem of Japanese rugby fans, Scottish soccer supporters, American World Cup victories and a first-time College World Series appearance by a small-state school.
That’s what makes this a true soft power victory. For native West Virginians, who have endured all manner of hardships and challenges, we know the song belongs to us.
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