The song, however, was not always universally loved. At both the time of its release and during its 2007 induction as a new state song, critics charged the “high” in the song referred to drug use. In the early 1970s, some radio stations even banned it. Denver would probably have been flummoxed in 2007, as well, when his so-named sanctuary in Aspen removed “scandalous” lines from his songs in a bout of hasty censorship, according to The Aspen Times, including “Rocky Mountain High.”
“My brother didn’t write it that way, and he never sang it that way,” Denver’s brother told the newspaper. “He’d be pissed like I’m pissed. It’s just not right.”
Denver had already experienced and in many ways anticipated future reactions before he died.
“This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains …” Denver told Congress as part of the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985, according to Eric D. Nuzum’s 2001 book “Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America.”
The fact that Colorado has successfully pioneered legal, recreational cannabis in Colorado since 2014 is something Denver might have found amusing, given his defense of the lyrics and the fact that openly admitting to smoking pot in the 1970s was still problematic (at best) for a musician, even a top-charting one.
