The American folk classic resonating with World Cup fans

The sound of tens of thousands of voices singing an American folk classic rang out across the sunlit Puget Sound as the U.S. men’s national team savored the afterglow of a comfortable World Cup victory over Australia inside Seattle’s open-air Lumen Field last week.

The emotional singalong of “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, captured on video by thousands of attendees, catapulted the classic song into fresh fame.

After the match, Spotify streams of the song increased by 74%, a company spokesperson told The Athletic, a sports-focused news site owned by The New York Times. Google searches for the song saw a similar spike and remained at higher-than-usual levels.

Since its release in 1971, John Denver’s wistful single has echoed in the hearts of sports fans around the world. The quintessential anthem has been adopted by Manchester United, West Virginia University’s football team and even the Brisbane Lions Australian rules football club.

The song’s timeless appeal can be largely explained by the content of its lyrics, which evoke a deep and universal nostalgia that feels like “aural comfort food,” according to David Herlihy, professor of music at Northeastern University.

In the Seattle stadium, those homesick lyrics connected fans from nations far and wide as they joined together in song, Herlihy told Northeastern Global News. “Despite the fact that we’re all coming from around the world, I think in some ways [the song] pulls us back to our roots.”

Herlihy said the song is just one page within an ancient history of songwriting focused on the concept of returning home. Even without Denver’s moving lyrics, he said, the track’s melodic arrangement touches on feelings that are shared by even the earliest human generations.

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“We had music before we had language, so I think it’s something that really pulls us back into a very elemental place,” he said. “When you see people singing a song about your uncomplicated origins, there’s something really universal about that.”

Andrew Mall, associate music professor at Northeastern University, said, “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is not the first song about yearning for home that found purchase in American popular culture.

“Home! Sweet Home!” was adapted from American actor John Howard Payne’s 1823 opera “Clari” and became popular among both Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War, Mall said.

“One of the things that [the war] did is displace people who had to deal with the war in their backyard or in their state,” Mall said. “It reminded them … of the homes that they left in order to pursue the objectives of their commanding officers.”

“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like home,” goes the 19th-century ballad.

Brianna Thorp, 32, and her soccer-loving husband traveled more than 2,000 miles from their Michigan home to attend last week’s World Cup match in Seattle, she told NGN. Their seats were high in the corner in full view of the packed stadium.

The two were surrounded by a hodgepodge of people in their section, Thorp said. There was a man in his eighties, a group of children behind them and pairs of younger men cheering beside them. After the U.S. team’s win, everyone moved to leave – until the opening guitar plucks of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” began emanating from the speakers.

“When that song played, everyone on the stairs that had started to leave stopped, and every single person around, even the Australians, started singing,” Thorp said. “It was goosebumps the whole time. I did get a little choked up. The atmosphere, everyone was hugging, and it was – it was really beautiful.”

There’s a reason “Take Me Home, Country Roads” has gone either gold or platinum in several nations since its release in 1971, Herlihy said, including countries that are participating in the 2026 World Cup. It is the reason that, even as one nation triumphed over another in competition last week, the song managed to bring together fans from both sides.

“‘Take Me Home, ‘Country Roads’ isn’t really about country, it’s really about you,” Herlihy said. “That gets actually deeper than country.”

And while the twin national anthems that are played at the start of each World Cup match can inspire a certain pride in listeners, Herlihy said “Country Roads” resonates because it provides the solace that only memories of home can.

“I think it’s actually more elemental than national anthems,” he said. “It’s almost like a personal anthem.”