JOHN DENVER COULD TURN MOUNTAINS INTO PRAYERS — BUT “IT MAKES ME GIGGLE” REMEMBERED THE HOLY SOUND OF A CHILD LAUGHING.
Not every John Denver song stands on a mountaintop.
Some of them sit on the floor.
Some of them live in the small, sunlit rooms of ordinary life, where a child laughs at something simple, where the world feels young for a moment, and where love does not need poetry because it is already dancing in the air.
“It Makes Me Giggle” belongs to that tender little corner of his music.
It is not trying to be grand.
That is why it matters.
John Denver was known for songs that reached toward the sky — “Rocky Mountain High,” “Annie’s Song,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” His voice could make a landscape feel almost sacred, as if the earth itself had leaned closer to listen.
But this song turns away from the horizon and looks at something smaller.
A laugh.
A silly moment.
The kind of joy adults often stop noticing because life teaches them to be serious, guarded, hurried, and tired.
Denver never lost his ability to honor innocence. He had a way of singing that made wonder feel respectable again. In his hands, childlike joy was not something to outgrow. It was something to protect.
That is the quiet beauty of “It Makes Me Giggle.”
It reminds us that happiness does not always arrive dressed as a miracle. Sometimes it arrives as a ridiculous sound in a room, a face trying not to smile, a child laughing so hard that everyone nearby forgets what they were worried about.
There is something deeply human in that.
Because giggling is not polished. It is not dignified. It is not the kind of emotion people pose for.
It escapes.
It breaks through.
It tells the truth before the heart has time to hide it.
John Denver understood that truth. His best music often carried a softness that some people mistook for simplicity. But tenderness is not simple. To keep singing gently in a hard world takes its own kind of courage.
And in a song like this, that courage becomes playful.
He is not preaching about joy.
He is letting joy be small enough to be real.
For many listeners, “It Makes Me Giggle” brings back a kind of memory they did not know they still had. A kitchen full of noise. A child in pajamas. A parent laughing despite themselves. A family moment so ordinary at the time that nobody thought to call it precious.
Then years pass.
The child grows up.
The room changes.
The laughter that once filled the house becomes something you hear only in memory, if a song happens to open the right door.
That is where the song catches the heart.
Not because it is sad on the surface.
Because it understands how fragile joy is.
The little things we laugh at today may one day become the things we would give anything to hear again. The giggle at the table, the joke that made no sense, the voice from down the hall — these are not small things once time has carried them away.
After John Denver’s passing, even his lightest songs carry another layer of tenderness.
His voice, so clear and open, now comes to us from memory. And when he sings something playful, something innocent, something almost weightless, it reminds us that he did not only want to lift people with beauty.
He wanted to help them stay human.
He wanted listeners to look at the world with softer eyes.
To laugh more easily.
To love the small moments before they became photographs.
That may be the hidden gift inside “It Makes Me Giggle.” It sounds simple, but it points toward something profound: joy is not always found in the grand chapters of life. Sometimes it is hiding in the silly little seconds we almost ignore.
A laugh at the breakfast table.
A song sung to a child.
A smile that arrives before you can stop it.
John Denver gave dignity to those moments.
He made them feel worth keeping.
And maybe that is why this song still feels warm. It does not ask us to climb a mountain or search the heavens. It asks us to listen for the laughter close by, the kind that makes a room lighter without trying.
Because long after the day is gone, long after the house is quiet, that little sound can remain.
A giggle.
A spark.
A piece of love too small for history, but big enough to light up a life.
Lyrics
“It Makes Me Giggle”
It makes me giggle, it makes me giggle, just having my baby around me.
It makes me giggle, sometimes I wiggle cause I’m so glad she found me.
Sometimes I wake up feeling crabby, she gives me love as sweet as candy.It makes me giggle, it makes me giggle, every time I see my little boy child.
It makes me giggle, sometimes I wiggle, sometimes I even jump for joy, child.
He knows just how to make me happy, he gives me loves and calls me Daddy.
It makes me giggle, it makes me giggle, c’mon giggle for me.If I ever felt better I can’t seem to recall. It just blows me away to be part of it all.
It makes me giggle, it makes me giggle, just singing these love songs for you.
It makes me giggle, sometimes I wiggle, there ain’t nothing that I’d rather do.
I like to see you with a smile on your face, I’d like to give one to the whole human race
and then I’d giggle, we could all giggle, now wiggle for me.If I ever felt better I can’t seem to recall, it just blows me away to be part of it all.