Vicky K. Ballow 2008-03-11

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Spirit is a beautiful song.I love John Denvers music.Mountians, the earth and the animals,what great things he chose to be close to his heart.He really knew what living was all about!

learjetpilot 2007-06-09

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Once again, John showed what incredible talent he had both as a song writer and singer. Such a loss to the world. A+, a "must" for any JD fan!!!

R. Depew 2005-08-04

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

John Denver's music defined my life as a teen and a young man. While my friends were into Fraternity of Man, Led Z and Tarkas, John Denver's music resonated in me and matched the experiences I was having in my life. In my early adult years, beginning with Windsong and Spirit, he started moving from easygoing nature boy and peace advocate into the mystical and more radical side of things. His music after Spirit reflected this shift, and I got increasingly disenchanted with it. Someone gave me I Want To Live as a gift, but I think Spirit was the last JD album I bought with my own money.

In addition, his personal life at the time started clashing with the public image he had built over the years. The love and fidelity for his wife that he celebrated in "Back Home Again" turned out to be a sham. He wrapped his Porsche around a tree (once? twice?) while speeding drunk along dangerous mountain roads, and tried many times to beat the ticket -- so much for love of nature, preserving natural resources, respect for fellowman and so on. When he crashed his plane, he was doing what he loved, but he was doing it with a suspended pilot's license -- suspended because of his history of drunken driving.

So JD and I parted company after Spirit. I didn't even listen to my old albums until after his death, when my kids started living through the same experiences I'd lived through. Suddenly the old music was relevant again. Telling bedtime stories to my children turned "Pegasus" into something magical, and similarly, tickle fights with the kids in the living room redeemed "It Makes Me Giggle". Watching a 13-year-old boy grow up made "Come and Let Me Look In Your Eyes" suddenly relevant. Dancing with my daughters brought back images of "Polka Dots and Moonbeams." Traveling home from business overseas personalized "Like a Sad Song" and "The Wrangell Mountain Song" (and "Starwood in Aspen," surprisingly). And watching my children's spiritual awakenings evoked, as others have mentioned, the last chorus of "The Wings that Fly Us Home."

I have no use for "Baby, You Look Good to Me Tonight." (It is good music, written and performed well, and it's REALLY fun to parody, but I've grown to associate it with the later Denver, and so it goes to the bottom of the Suck-o-Meter, in my opinion.) But the rest of the album is good stuff, the last of the kind of music that won the hearts of so many people, made him famous, and made his concerts so much fun.

R. Graham 2004-12-23

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

This review pertains only to the 12 songs that comprise the original 'Spirit' (my only commentary on the bonus tracks from 'Who's Garden Is This?' is that they illustrate why that album was JD's least successful commercially). I am a huge John Denver fan, but will readily admit that most JD albums contain an equal number of classics, good songs, and throwaways. 'Spirit' is no exception. The album's opener "Come and Let Me Look In Your Eyes" is one of the great JD album cuts. This is a song that the general public would not know, but it is a song you should know. A very thoughtful lyric and an immediately catchy melody. "Eli's Song" and "Wrangell Mountain" are both solid, especially the former. Without going into them one by one, tracks 4-7 are the weakest songs on the album, especially "It Makes Me Giggle." Track 8, "Baby You Look Good To Me Tonight" is catchy, and improves with repeated listening. "Like A Sad Song" was the hit off of this album, and while not the 'minor masterpiece' proclaimed by the liner notes, it is a very good song and one you will recognize. Tracks 10 and 11 are a bit of a lull, and even the first bits of the final track, 'The Wings That Carry Us Home' are a bit lumbering. However, the final half, and especially the final minute, of this last song is among the highlights of the Denver canon. While it is hard to pick out the best 60 seconds of a 30-year career, the last minute of 'The Wings That Carry Us Home' would have to be in the top ten. It is that good. It is beautifully sung and the lyrics evoke those of the once-performed, never recorded Denver masterpiece "The Wandering Soul."

Barron Laycock 2003-08-02

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

This is a wonderful example of John Denver's wonderful talents as a singer and a songwriter, one produced at the height of his popularity in the mid-1970s. Here we see some of the monster hits that propelled him into amazing popularity and superstardom in the early 1970s. In his heyday no one was outselling his albums or out-booking John for concert appearances, and considering the incredible talents on the scene at the time, that is a pretty good indication of just how popular he was, and just how universal John Denver's appeal was. No one else sang of the wide-open possibilities and seemingly limitless prospects for a good life awaiting those who would free themselves from the bonds that confined them and just dare to soar along with him in the wild open spaces.

All the tracks here are terrific, from "Come And Let Me Look Into Your Eyes", a lovely and sentimental love song, one often performed in live performances, to "Sad Song', another monster hit he became so famous for. His paeans to appreciating the beauties of nature and the natural life were modeled after a much earlier song included in this re-issue of the album, a lovely work called "Whose Garden Was This?". Denver more than any of his contemporaries actively caught the public's imagination regarding the wonders of the natural environment, and in a time when environmental concerns were splashed all over the headlines and the evening news, John's vision of popular concern for and stewardship of the natural world was immensely important. This album represents a wonderful example of the amazing talents of John, made even as he continued to thrill a whole generation with his own perspective of a meaningful life lived in the natural splendor of nature. I know you will enjoy this as well as all of his others. Far out!