THE JOHN DENVER THEORY

Last Thursday night I was out with my girlfriend Kiki and a bunch of her co-workers at a sports bar near O'Hare. It's a nondescript kind of joint with the usual neon signs, promotional banners and hot wing specials, filled with guys in United Airlines bibs who just got off their shift at the airport.

This bar also has karaoke, and there were plenty of William Hung-ish performances to go around. A stubby girl who looked like she'd swallowed Violet Beauregard from Willy Wonka screeched her way through "Black Velvet". Another mousy woman did "You Oughta Know" and sounded like two badgers in heat going at it behind a wood shed.

A group of four young soldiers who had just come home from Iraq did Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA". They were horrible singers but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy seeing them having a good time. Everybody cheered when they were done, with the loudest applause and whistles coming from a big table full of oddly dressed people.

Kiki got up next to sing "Eight Days A Week". The table full of oddly dressed people started cheering and following along. There were 11 of them, varying in age from early 20s to mid 70s, and they loved the Beatles. When she was done a few of them started blowing kisses. I overheard someone refer to the group as "the Germans", and it all made sense.

I immediately grabbed the songbook and signed up for some karaoke kryptonite.

When I went to Munich for Oktoberfest a few years back I learned that Germans love "Take Me Home, Country Roads". Every oompa band in every beer tent plays that damn song. You haven't lived until you've heard 5000+ Germans singing "VEST Vir-JEAN-ya...Mow-TAN Mah-MAHHHHH...."
Without fail, they go absolutely apeshit over it. I wonder what the German box office totals were back when Oh God! was released.

I told our group of my John Denver Theory. They were puzzled. The karaoke jockey didn't believe it when he was told what was about to transpire.

Finally my name was called. I grabbed the mic and dedicated the song to the German contingent. They all turned with a look of surprise and started cheering, having no idea what was ahead. I probably could've done "Get The Fuck Out" by 2 Live Crew and they would've enjoyed it.

At first they just smiled and followed along with the words on the screen.

"Almost heaven, West Virginia
Blue Ridge Mountains
Shenandoah River"

Towards the end of the verse they recognized the song and started jumping up and down like kids on Christmas morning.

"Life is old there
Older than the trees
Younger than the mountains
Growin' like a breeze"

As the chorus kicked in they all started bellowing:

"Country Roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, mountain momma
Take me home, country roads"

Except it sounded more like:

"KAHN-tree ROHDS, take-a me HOHM
To de PLAYS I be-LAWNNNNNN
VEST Ver-JEAN-yah, mow-TAN mah-MAHHHHH
Take-a me HOHM, KAHN-tree ROHDS"


An hour later I was on my fourth shot of "dis Irish Whee-skee" with Wolfgang, Danie and friends and had secured accomodations for next summer at the 2006 World Cup.

Thank you John Denver.


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Postscript:
The next day I was going through my wallet and pulled out the drunken scribbled address that one of the Germans had given to me. He wrote this note on the side:

"Se best OK my frend
Contry Musik"

I could move to Deutschland and be the next Garth Brooks. Or David Hasselhoff, at the very least.