John Denver - Leaving on a Jet Plane

What this video is

John Denver wrote 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' in 1966 during a layover at Washington National Airport, originally titled 'Babe I Hate to Go.' By 1972, Denver had re-recorded it for his landmark Greatest Hits album (1973) and was ascending to the peak of his popularity as America's pre-eminent acoustic folk-pop artist. The song encapsulates the early 1970s singer-songwriter ethos: confessional lyricism, acoustic…

Why it matters

This performance is a primary document of early 1970s American folk-pop at its commercial and cultural zenith. Denver's unaccompanied or minimally accompanied delivery of a song he had written six years prior — by then already a standard — demonstrates the genre's emphasis on songcraft over…