I grew up on John Denver music since my parents owned some of his records and this was one of his later songs I was enamoured with. Denver wrote this for his Australian wife Cassandra Delaney who he met in a bar when he went out with friends. He wrote For You in 1986 and debuted it on his tour that year. The song always got tremendous ovations and there were times John actually stopped singing to let the applause die down.
Just to look in your eyes again
Just to lay in your arms
Just to be the first one always there for you
Just to live in your laughter
Just to sing in your heart
Just to be everyone of your dreams come true
The song was released on Denver’s 20th studio album Higher Ground. Unlike the rest of the album (done in Colorado), For You was recorded in Sydney. Denver married Delaney in 88, but they divorced in 93 and it wasn’t a pretty time for both parties. Delaney alleged it was due to Denver’s alcoholism and Denver said, “..she managed to make a fool of me from one end of the valley to the other“.
Denver began his music career with folk music groups during the late 1960s. Starting in the 1970s, he was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best-selling artists. Denver died on October 12, 1997, when his light homebuilt aircraft, crashed into Monterey Bay, California.
Beyond music, Denver’s artistic interests included painting, but because of his limiting schedule he pursued photography, saying once, “photography is a way to communicate a feeling“. Denver was also an avid skier and golfer, but his principal interest was in flying.
As usual, the associated wikipedia references.
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
I ♥ John Denver. He was a pretty regular listening choice of my childhood. What a voice! So underrated…
He was big in his time. I think he has a few hits which will live on.
A lovely song – and I have no idea why I haven’t heard it before. I cried, but then again I’m a snowflake.
It’s a goodie. <Snowflakes tend to cry if heated 😛
John Denver was terribly underrated, but that was pretty much inevitable. The people who influence opinion in Western Culture despised him, and that kind of trickled down. But I admire the fact that he never gave an inch to these people. As opposed to someone like, say, Mandy Moore, who was told that she sucked…and quickly converted, and began to PROCLAIM how badly she sucked. John knew that he was behind the 8 ball with the critics, and continued right on being himself, and making music the way that he preferred…and he DID pay for it. It always amazes me how people will mock John for staying true to his own way, while the same people will faun over Madonna for constantly ‘reinventing’ herself, or Bowie for being the proverbial ‘chameleon.’ But these same critics CLAIM to worship authenticity…keeping it ‘real’…The simple truth is, John was amazingly talented, but he adhered to a sort of Middle American sense of tradition and decency that made him nausea-inducing to the media machine. The older I get, the more I admire those who stay true to who they are. John did just that.
Well said, although I am not very conversant with his discography or personal life other than what I researched for this song. Thanks so much for commenting and adding your poignant thoughts.