In Popular Culture
In 2005, the song was performed by a soloist at the NBA all-star game in Denver. After years as an unofficial anthem for Colorado, on March 12, 2007, the Colorado General Assembly made "Rocky Mountain High" one of two official state songs, sharing the honor with "Where the Columbines Grow". The song was also used in an advertisement for Colorado-based Coors beer.
In late 2007, the John Denver Sanctuary drew some controversy after the last lines of the song were removed from the 'Rocky Mountain High" stone.
The song was used as a warning for death in the 2000 film Final Destination, referencing Denver's death in a plane crash and leading the main character to believe that "the plane's gonna explode!"
The song is mentioned in passing in the 1994 film Dumb and Dumber. After driving for several hours in the wrong direction, the two main characters mistake a desert for the Rockies, mentioning that they "expected the Rocky Mountains to be a little 'rockier,'" and that "John Denver was full of shit."
Snowmass ski resort, near Aspen, named a run "Rocky Mountain High" in honor of John Denver.
Read more about this topic: Rocky Mountain High
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The popular definition of tragedy is heavy drama in which everyone is killed in the last act, comedy being light drama in which everyone is married in the last act.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The anorexic prefigures this culture in rather a poetic fashion by trying to keep it at bay. He refuses lack. He says: I lack nothing, therefore I shall not eat. With the overweight person, it is the opposite: he refuses fullness, repletion. He says, I lack everything, so I will eat anything at all. The anorexic staves off lack by emptiness, the overweight person staves off fullness by excess. Both are homeopathic final solutions, solutions by extermination.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)