A songwriting retreat in the Great Smoky Mountains produced one of Tennessee’s most recognizable songs, and according to its writers, the whole thing took only about 15 minutes.
Husband-and-wife songwriting team Boudleaux and Felice Bryant wrote “Rocky Top” while staying at the Gatlinburg Inn in Tennessee in 1967. The Osborne Brothers recorded the song that same year, turning the quickly written tune into an enduring bluegrass favorite that would eventually become an official state song.
The Bryants already had an extraordinary catalog behind them.
They had written a string of hits for The Everly Brothers, including “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” In 1967, the couple traveled to Gatlinburg to work on a collection of slower songs for an album by Archie Campbell.
They needed a change of pace.
As the story goes, Boudleaux suggested writing something faster to break up the session. Within roughly 10 minutes, the couple had created “Rocky Top,” an upbeat ode to an imagined place tucked away in the Tennessee hills.
Its cheerful chorus disguised a more complicated message.
The narrator longs for a simpler life on Rocky Top while contrasting it with the pressures of the city. Along the way, the Bryants also worked in references to moonshine, disappearing federal agents, and environmental changes, giving the song considerably more character than a straightforward celebration of mountain life.
The Osborne Brothers recorded it in November 1967.
Released as a single in December, “Rocky Top” reached No. 33 on Billboard’s country chart in 1968. It wasn’t an enormous chart hit, but the song proved far more durable than its initial peak suggested.
“Rocky Top” soon became deeply connected to Tennessee.
The University of Tennessee’s Pride of the Southland Band began performing it at sporting events in the 1970s, helping turn the song into an unofficial anthem for the school. In 1982, Tennessee designated “Rocky Top” one of its official state songs.
“It’s the nostalgic plea for simple times that really resonates with everybody,” said Del Bryant, the son of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, in an interview. “There’s a longing there that is not quite sad, still a happy tempo, but that is what resonates with people and what the core of the song is about.”
Other country stars embraced it as well, with Lynn Anderson taking her version into the Top 20 on the country chart in 1970.
“People ask me now, ‘When you gonna quit?'” Bobby Osborne told NPR in 2017. “Why, they ask the wrong guy. I don’t intend to quit as long as I can do what I’m doing now. Now, if I get to where I can’t sing or can’t play or can’t think good or whatever, then I might have to. But I ain’t gonna quit ’til then.”
Fifty-nine years after the Bryants sat down to write it at the Gatlinburg Inn, “Rocky Top” has long since outgrown its modest chart beginnings. What started as a 15-minute break from writing ballads became a song inseparable from Tennessee itself.