The original title of the idiotic song was "Almost Heaven, Massachusetts". Deutschendorf (Denver's real name) who was an Air Force brat who had limited geographical knowledge who had never been in WV spending most of his early life in Europe, got the song from the author, Bill Danoff, who also had never even been to West Virginia, and was from Massachusetts.
Deutschendorf want to make the song "more southern" and considered Alabama, which also fit the meter of the song, but he did not think he could pull off a deep southern vibe. "Sweet Home" was two years away, Alabama the group was another 3. He quickly re-wrote it to "West Virginia" and used place names from northern Virginia and a few substitute lyrics, such as changing "frosty taste of Schaefer's" (a regional beer) to "misty taste of moonshine" (which no human who has ever had real moonshine would describe the taste as "misty" ), and "beautiful blue waters" to "stranger to blue water" and ignoring the radio line, where it "reminds me of my home far away" which is to say Boston stations as he was heading on a country road towards home, Boston; where as given the northern Virginia geography if a person was heading west towards WV, the dominant radio stations, and thus "home" would be behind you, in DC and Baltimore.
Marshall should never play that song. We are better than that.
