A HOMECOMING IN THE SNOW-DUSTED SKIES OF ASPEN
When Starwood in Aspen opens, you feel the wide-open space of the Rockies wrapped in a wistful longing — a return-to-roots hymn penned by John Denver for his sanctuary in the mountains. The song appears on his fifth studio album Aerie (released November 1971). While it did not register as a major chart-topping single, it occupies a quiet, cherished corner of his catalog—one of those deeper tracks that loyal fans pinpoint when exploring Denver’s thematic connection to home, nature and solitude.
In this introduction I will walk you through the lyric and musical architecture of the piece—what Denver is saying about place and belonging, how the mountain setting is more than scenery, and how “Starwood in Aspen” becomes a quietly radiant reflection on identity and refuge.
From the very first lines—“It’s a long way from L.A. to Denver, it’s a long time to hang in the sky. It’s a long way home to Starwood in Aspen, my sweet Rocky Mountain paradise”—Denver evokes a journey both physical and existential. Los Angeles and Denver serve as book-ends of a kind: one, the sprawling, commercialed city; the other, the gateway to his mountain home. “Starwood in Aspen” becomes emblematic of a personal place of solace. The lyric is deceptively simple, but the shift—“a long way home to Starwood in Aspen, my sweet Rocky Mountain paradise”—carries a weight of longing and of earned arrival. The mountain becomes a sanctuary, not just a backdrop.
Musically, the melody unfolds gently, anchored in Denver’s folk-country sensibility: warm guitar, heartfelt delivery, uncluttered arrangement. On the album listing, “Starwood in Aspen” clocks in at 3:04 minutes. That brevity is part of its charm—it doesn’t demand attention like a hit single, but invites reflection. Lyrically, the second verse deepens the sense of change and distance: “Springtime is rolling ’round slowly, gray skies are bringing me down. Can’t remember when I’ve ever been so lonely, I’ve forgot what it’s like to be home…”. Here the mountain retreat is juxtaposed with a dislocation—he’s away, removed, remembering what home was, what home is. It captures the universal feeling of being away and realizing how much one misses the place where one truly belongs.
The chorus and recurring motif—Starwood, Aspen, the sweet Rocky Mountain paradise—work like an invocation. Denver doesn’t just sing of the place, he sings to it. The repetition reinforces that this is a sacred place, almost mythic in its personal significance. The lines “I think of my lady’s sweet memory, I think on my children’s sweet smiles. I think of my home at Starwood in Aspen, all my friends and the snow-covered hills” establish a broad emotional field: home includes lover, children, friends, a landscape of snow-covered hills. Denver is mapping his emotional geography onto a physical geography.
Though there is no prominent documented story of how “Starwood in Aspen” was written—unlike some of his more famous songs—the context of Denver’s own life strongly informs it. He had relocated to Colorado and become closely identified with the Rocky Mountains. The album Aerie itself reflects that terrain of mind and place: the very title evokes an eagle’s perch high above the ground. That connection to landscape was never merely decorative in Denver’s work—it is symbolic. The mountains stand for home, for spiritual renewal, for the self in quiet communion with nature.
In the broader arc of Denver’s career, “Starwood in Aspen” holds a special value because it predates his major commercial breakthrough that would come with the album Rocky Mountain High (1972). Here we see Denver already cultivating the themes—home, memory, altitude, nature—that would come to define him. So this track is one of those foundational pieces: quiet, reflective, proto-anthemic in its sincerity.
What makes “Starwood in Aspen” resonate today is its gentle yet profound embrace of belonging. In an age of speed, movement and displacement, Denver reminds us of the patient, slow-turning seasons—“Springtime is rolling ’round slowly”—and of the power of a place to hold and to heal. The line “I’ve forgot what it’s like to be home” is, in its understated way, among the most frank confessions of adult longing in his catalog.
In this way the song serves as both tribute and pilgrimage: a tribute to the mountains, to the people he loves, to the ground beneath his feet—and a pilgrimage for the listener, inviting us to find our own “Starwood,” our own Aspen-like refuge. Denver gives us the melody, the memory, the landscape; what remains is ours to complete.
In the end, Starwood in Aspen is more than a track on Aerie—it’s a map of heart and home. When Denver sings “my sweet Rocky Mountain paradise,” it is neither boast nor boastful terrain, but a whisper of gratitude and of longing fulfilled. For any listener attuned to the hum of place and the ache of out-returning, this song remains a soft beacon—quiet, beautiful, timeless.