"Rocky Mountain High" was primarily inspired by John Denver's move to Aspen, Colorado, three years before its writing, and by his love for the state.

when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission was permitted by a legal ruling to censor music deemed to promote drug abuse[citation needed].

Numerous radio stations cautiously banned it[citation needed] until Denver publicly explained that the phrase "everybody's 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.

American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey referenced "Rocky Mountain High" in her 2023 single "The Grants".