back to the couple's apartment for an impromptu jam. On the way, Denver's left thumb was broken in a collision. He was rushed to the emergency room, where the thumb was put in a splint. By the time they got back to the apartment, Denver said he was "wired, you know." When Danoff and Nivert ran through what they had of the song they had been working on for about a month, planning to sell to Johnny Cash, Denver "flipped." He decided he had to have it, prompting them to abandon plans for the sale. The verses and chorus were still missing a bridge, so the three of them went about finishing. Nivert got out an encyclopedia to learn more about West Virginia, and the first thing she came upon was the Rhododendron, the state flower, so she kept trying to work the word Rhododendron into the song. Rhododendron was the title that Nivert had written down on the lyric sheet, which they later sent to ASCAP. The three stayed up until 6:00 a.m., changing words and moving lines around. When they finished, on the morning of Wednesday, December 30, 1970, Denver announced that the song had to go on his next album. Later that night, during Denver's first set, Denver called his two collaborators back to the spotlight, where the trio changed their career trajectories, reading the lyrics from a single, handheld, unfolded piece of paper. According to Len Jaffe, a Washington, D.C.-based singer-songwriter who attended the show where Denver premiered the song, this resulted in a five-minute standing ovation. The next day was Denver's 28th birthday. They recorded it in New York City in January 1971. "Take Me Home, County Roads" is written in a Key of A major, and composed in a tempo of 82 beats per minute per common time. Commercial performance "Take Me Home, Country Roads" appeared on the LP Poems, Prayers & Promises and was released as a 45 in the spring of 1971. Original pressings credited the single to "John Denver with Fat City". It broke nationally in mid-April but moved up the charts very slowly. After several weeks, RCA Records called John and told him that they were giving up on the single. His response: "No! Keep working on it!" They did, and the single went to number 1 on the Record World Pop Singles Chart and the Cash Box Top 100,