The Honest Echo of a Life Lived: Facing the Rough Spots with a Rocky Mountain Smile
There is a deceptive simplicity to the songs of John Denver, an ease that often masked the emotional depth and universal truths within his music. Few tracks capture that quiet complexity as perfectly as “Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stone),” a song that arrived in the 1980s, long after his peak, yet stands as one of his most deeply felt and relatable recordings. For those of us who have lived through enough seasons to see the shifting landscape of life, this song is less a tune and more a knowing nod of understanding.
Chart Success, Songwriting History, and Meaning
The song, released in May 1981, served as the lead single and title track for John Denver’s album, Some Days Are Diamonds. Its chart performance showed that his connection with the audience remained strong, particularly within the genre that had always welcomed his gentle, acoustic style. US Country Chart Position: It reached a strong peak of Number 10 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. US Pop Chart Position: It crossed over to the broader audience, peaking at Number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100. Canadian Country Chart Position: A major success north of the border, the song climbed all the way to Number 1 on the RPM Country Tracks chart. Album: The track was the cornerstone of the 1981 album, Some Days Are Diamonds.
Despite the intimate feeling John Denver brought to the track, he was not the songwriter. “Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stone)” was originally written and recorded in 1976 by the wonderfully gifted artist Dick Feller. Intriguingly, in later years, Feller transitioned and became known as Deena Kaye Rose, revealing a profound personal story that adds another layer of meaning to the song’s central metaphor of internal struggle and hidden identity.
The song’s essence, however, remains universal: It is a candid admission that happiness is fleeting, and pretending otherwise is exhausting. The opening lines—“When you ask how I’ve been here without you / I’d like to say I’ve been fine, and I do / But we both know the truth is hard to come by / And if I told the truth, that’s not quite true”—cut right to the heart of post-breakup or post-loss grief. The diamonds represent the moments of clarity, joy, and resilience, while the stones signify the heavy, cold, unmoving burdens of hard times, loneliness, and despair. It’s the simple, eternal struggle to put on a brave face when inside, the “cold wind blows a chill in my bones.”
The Gentle Man’s Poignancy
John Denver recorded this song during a period of significant personal change and turmoil, specifically following his high-profile divorce. While he didn’t write the lyrics, his interpretation of the song’s meaning felt startlingly authentic, as if the writer had penned his own autobiography. The characteristic sincerity in his voice gave weight to the loneliness, especially the haunting lines about recognizing the danger in “becoming what I never thought I’d be.” For many of us of a certain age, those words hit differently—they speak to the slow, sometimes unwelcome changes that time inflicts upon us, both externally and within our own souls.
His version is laced with a melancholy maturity that contrasts with his earlier, sunnier anthems. It is a song that acknowledges the rough edges of life without losing hope, a true diamond forged under the pressure of real-world troubles. It reminds us that even the most optimistic among us have days where we’re just grinding through the gravel. It’s a moment of shared vulnerability with an artist who always seemed like the boy next door, proving that even he knew the weight of a stone-heavy day.