"Leaving on a Jet Plane" (Peter, Paul & Mary)

I was never a fan of John Denver.  As a kid, my reaction to watching his Christmas special with the Muppets was, "Why are the Muppets hanging out with this guy?"  He always seemed two tokes from meeting Jesus.  (It wasn't the Aspen altitude or sunshine that were making him "high," that's for sure.)
Nevertheless, I liked his composition "Leaving on a Jet Plane" as interpreted by folkies Peter, Paul & Mary—a rendition that was played pretty frequently in my household growing up.
Denver wrote it in 1966, the group recorded it in 1967, but it didn't become a hit for them until 1969, when they released it as a single.  Even though it's not about the Vietnam War (Denver supposedly came up with the song while sitting in an airport, feeling lonely), its story of being whisked away on a jet to some unnamed destination for an indeterminate length of time and hastily making amends/making promises of marriage surely made it sound like it was about a young soldier saying goodbye for the last time.  (It would explain why a random folk song suddenly rocketed to the top of the charts in December 1969.)
As I've said before, I'm often drawn to the sound of a song.  And there's something so pure and true about the alto voice of Mary Travers against the backdrop of acoustic guitars and upright bass.  She unwraps the emotion in the lyric without having to be melodramatic (count that as another reason I never cared for Denver), and the result is just the right mix of beauty and sadness.