"Rocky Mountain High" is primarily inspired by John Denver's move to Aspen, Colorado three years before its writing and his love for the state. The seventh stanza makes a reference to destruction of the mountains' beauty by commercial tourism. The song was considered a major piece of 1970’s pop culture and became a well-associated piece of Colorado history. The song briefly became controversial that year when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was permitted by a legal ruling to censor music deemed to promote drug abuse. Numerous radio stations cautiously banned the song until Denver publicly explained that the "high" was his innocent description of the sense of peace he found in the Rockies. In 1985, Denver testified before Congress in the Parents Music Resource Center hearings about his experience:
This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains, and also had never experienced the elation, celebration of life or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something as wondrous as the Perseid meteor shower on a moonless, cloudless night, when there are so many stars that you have a shadow from the starlight, and you are out camping with your friends, your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature's most spectacular light shows for the first time.
After years as an unofficial anthem for Colorado, on March 12, 2007, the Colorado General Assembly made "Rocky Mountain High" one of two official state songs, sharing the honor with "Where the Columbines Grow". In late 2007, the John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen drew some controversy after the last lines of the song were removed from the "Rocky Mountain High" stone. The song was used as a warning for death in the 2000 film Final Destination, which revolves around the aftermath of an aviation accident, referencing Denver's death in a plane crash. The song appears numerous times throughout the film as a motif for foreshadowing death. In his 1996 HBO special Back in Town, comedian George Carlin talks about sanctioning off the state of Colorado as a permanent prison farm for drug addicts and alcoholics, saying "this is the real Rocky Mountain High!" The song was indirectly referenced in the movie Dumb and Dumber. In the movie, the character Harry comments on the flatness of what they thought was the Rocky Mountains, before Lloyd remarks "I was thinking the same thing. That John Denver is full of shit, man," seconds before they realize they went the wrong direction, towards the wheatfields of Iowa and Kansas. Snowmass ski resort, near Aspen, named a run "Rocky Mountain High" in honor of John Denver.
