"Rocky Top" is an American country and bluegrass song written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant in 1967 and first recorded by the Osborne Brothers later that same year. The song, which is a city-dweller's lamentation over the loss of a simpler and freer existence in the hills of Tennessee, is one of Tennessee's eight official state songs and has been recorded by dozens of artists from multiple musical genres worldwide since its publication. In U.S. college athletics, "Rocky Top" is associated with the Tennessee Volunteers of the University of Tennessee, whose Pride of the Southland Band has played a marching band version of the song at the school's sporting events since the early 1970s.
The Osborne Brothers' 1967 bluegrass version of the song reached number thirty-three on the U.S. Country charts, and country singer Lynn Anderson's 1970 version peaked at number seventeen. In 2005, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ranked "Rocky Top" number seven on its list of 100 Songs of the South.
Read more about Rocky Top: Background, Notable Covers
Famous quotes containing the words rocky and/or top:
“Who will join in the march to the Rocky Mountains with me, a sort of high-pressure-double-cylinder-go-it-ahead-forty-wildcats- tearin’ sort of a feller?... Git out of this warming-pan, ye holly-hocks, and go out to the West where you may be seen.”
—Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In a famous Middletown study of Muncie, Indiana, in 1924, mothers were asked to rank the qualities they most desire in their children. At the top of the list were conformity and strict obedience. More than fifty years later, when the Middletown survey was replicated, mothers placed autonomy and independence first. The healthiest parenting probably promotes a balance of these qualities in children.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)