Comments on: A-trickling down the rocks

A-trickling down the rocks

GavinR — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:59:11 -0800

Big Rock Candy Mountain is just a wonderful little song. I don't know many hobo tunes, but this one gets stuck in my head from time to time. It has been covered by Burl Ives, a drunken Tom Waits, and then was reworked as the theme song to the amazingly awesome animated TV show that is The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.

By: Lizc

Lizc — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:17:36 -0800

It's also the music for the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch Burger King advert and the intro music for O Brother Where Art Thou?

By: functionequalsform

functionequalsform — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:20:15 -0800

"Drunken Tom Waits" sounds just like Brak.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:25:13 -0800

The Burger King thing I was reluctant to include, and the Cohen brothers clip I couldn't find but then again I didn't search hard enough obviously. The soundtrack to that movie is absolutely where I first got hooked on the song. Also, I can't say enough about how great Flapjack is.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:27:12 -0800

thanks... for you darn kids: When I was young (and we walked to school two miles, uphill (both ways) through three feet of snow) we spent a part of every day singing songs like "Big Rock Candy Mountain"... there's not a one of us in my generation that can't sing that song, and a hundred others like it... and, we're better people for it.... the hell with the bail out... we need more folk songs!

By: Horace Rumpole

Horace Rumpole — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:45:16 -0800

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats FTW.

By: AgentRocket

AgentRocket — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:07:05 -0800

Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell do a delightful kiddi-fied derivative version of this. Their harmonies are just so pretty. I am sorry to admit that I didn't know about the much more fun hobo version; thanks GavinR. (Boy is the Sherman family going to be confused when the playcount on their slideshow video suddenly jumps.)

By: DU

DU — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:09:47 -0800

After watching some clips AND reading the Wikipedia entry AND looking at the Official Page...is that a kid's show or what?

By: PostIronyIsNotaMyth

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:10:29 -0800

It's also the music for the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch Burger King advert Poor Hootie.

By: PostIronyIsNotaMyth

PostIronyIsNotaMyth — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:13:05 -0800

Man, anyone know if Billy Bragg has done a cover of this?

By: telstar

telstar — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:25:17 -0800

Bowdlerization. (among other crimes)

By: palliser

palliser — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:30:06 -0800

Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell do a delightful kiddi-fied derivative version of this. WTF is this? My only reward, so far in life, for knowing all the words to "BRCM" has been hearing my three-year-old sing about paddling all around a lake of whiskey in a big canoe. And it's priceless. Thanks for the post!

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:34:31 -0800

Wow, "drunken Tom Waits" still sounds like a poor man's Don Van Vliet.

By: palliser

palliser — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:36:42 -0800

HuronBob, we did, too -- we called them, imprecisely, "Dad's cowboy songs." Sadly, our government now feels the need to accompany its transcription of the lyrics to this song with the following warning: "smoking and alcohol addictions are extremely harmful to your health; and no situation will be improved by having easy access to cigarettes or alcohol, as promised in the fictional (and extremely unhealthy!) Big Rock Candy Mountains."

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:39:01 -0800

Thanks for the cool post. The Beat Farmers did a nice version.

By: msbutah

msbutah — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:47:38 -0800

This is the only Candy Mountain song I know... Chaaarlieeeee

By: Ghidorah

Ghidorah — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 19:53:47 -0800

Thanks. I first heard this from O Brother, and I love the song. Goes well, if you're interested, with Utah Philips.

By: kenlayne

kenlayne — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:08:42 -0800

I learned this song from my grandpa, an actual railroad cop in 1920s Texas, but it was the version sung by the late Country Dick Montana that I love best. Must've heard the Beat Farmers play it a hundred different times.

By: robcorr

robcorr — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:09:12 -0800

I've had this song going around in my head for the last few days, and now this post has locked it in for the forseeable future... In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, All the cops have wooden legs, The bulldogs all have rubber teeth, And the hens lay soft boiled eggs.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:15:18 -0800

This is one of the songs I know by heart and would sing to myself when walking the long trek to school through the woods growing up. All the other ones where murder ballads. I was kind of the weird kid.

By: sharkfu

sharkfu — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:15:23 -0800

I just came in to mention that whilst researching a project a couple years back I learned (as the wikipedia link mentions) that the song was written as a hobo recruiting a child with false promises about a great life on the road. The child would be used for panhandling (because they earned more) and for sex, as shown in the removed stanza in which the child being conned replies: "I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore And I'll be damned if I hike any more To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore In the Big Rock Candy Mountains." The song seemed rather dark and sinister after I learned that.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:20:07 -0800

The song seemed rather dark and sinister after I learned that. This is my like Aunt thinking Mack The Knife is a jaunty song about a charming cad , right?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:27:23 -0800

Um, yeah I was going to say what sharkfu was -- I've heard it was a hobo song that was meant to lure kids onto the rails to basically be slaves for them (work slave and sexual slaves). I can't believe that doesn't even show up in the wikipedia entry.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:32:10 -0800

Sadly, our government now feels the need to accompany its transcription of the lyrics to this song with the following warning Holy shit -- I thought you were kidding and then I clicked on the link and now I want to cry for the children. What's next, warning labels about carbon taxes on matchbox cars?

By: serazin

serazin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:44:37 -0800

I'd love to see some substantiation of the song-as-bait thing. It certainly seems plausible though! And that NIH link was insane. Why the hell do they have the song on their site anyhow?

By: theredpen

theredpen — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:49:33 -0800

Buzzkill! I used to like this song!!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:11:17 -0800

the song was written as a hobo recruiting a child with false promises about a great life on the road. The version that I have has a whole intro by the guy who either wrote it or knew the guy who did who supported this interpretation. I think I got it from the Smithsonian Folkways recording or something similar. It's also weirdly racist, my version has a line about "where they hung the Turk that invented work..."

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:25:47 -0800

It wouldn't be a folk song without a sinister backstory now would it?

By: peeedro

peeedro — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:31:38 -0800

On a website where the pro's beware 'cause a blue background's a'glowin' Comes a cross cyclin' mathowie and he said my viking's a'showin' We're blazing a trail with pb in tail by the pepsi blue fountains So come with me an' we'll go an' see the MetaFilter Mountains In the MetaFilter Mountains where the secret word is "the." Where threads will all wendell with the Westphalia Treaty Where the quonsars all are schmoopy and the cat scans every day Where the jon emcees with our overthunk beans jessamyn enamors, cortex ban-hammers In the MetaFilter Mountains

By: DataPacRat

DataPacRat — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:32:14 -0800

The Wikipedia article mentions the sinister backstory /now/...

By: marxchivist

marxchivist — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:36:02 -0800

Okay, fuck that NIH link. no situation will be improved by having easy access to cigarettes or alcohol I read in a comic book that Dope will get through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:45:18 -0800

Despite efforts, there are still some trolls in the Metafilter Mountains, but they turn to stone and ash in the light of our Brand New Day.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:52:21 -0800

From The Hobo's Horn Book (1930) by George Milburn: In many small cities and towns the children of poor whites use the railroad yards as their playgrounds, From these urchins the jockers sometimes recruit their road kids, and to entice them they tell them roseate tales of tramp life. These fabrications are known as "ghost stories." To homeguards "The Big Rock Candy Moun- tains" may appear a nonsense song, but to all pied pipers in on the know it is an amusing exaggeration of the ghost stories used in recruiting kids. One sunny day in the month of May A jocker he come hiking; He come to a tree, and "Ah!" says he, "This is just to my liking!" In the very same month on the very same day A hoosier's son came hiking; Said the bum to the son, "O, will you come To the Big Rock Candy Mountains. Chorus: "TU show you the bees And the cigarette trees, ex The Hobo's Hornbook And the soda-water fountains, And the lemonade springs Where the bluebird sings In the Big Rock Candy Mountains." So they started away on the very same day, The bum and the kid together, To romp and to rove in the cigarette grove In the land of sunny weather. They dreamed and hiked for many days, The mile posts they were counting But they never arrived at the lemonade tide And the Big Rock Candy Mountain. The punk rolled up his big blue eyes, And he said to the jocker, "Sandy, I've hiked and hiked and counted ties, But I ain't seen no candy. i've hiked and hiked till my feet "re sore, 111 be God damned if I hike any more To be a homeguard with a lemonade card In the Big Rock Candy Mountains/3 Without citation, from WP: Before recording the song, McClintock cleaned it up considerably from the version he sang as a street busker in 1897. Originally the song described a child being recruited into hobo life by tales of the "big rock candy mountain". Such recruitment actually occurred, with hobos enchanting children with tales of adventure called ghost stories by other hobos. In proof of his authorship of the song, McClintock published the original words, the last stanza of which was: The punk rolled up his big blue eyes And said to the jocker, "Sandy, I've hiked and hiked and wandered too, But I ain't seen any candy. I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore And I'll be damned if I hike any more To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."

By: julen

julen — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:54:48 -0800

Bob Dylan played the "songwriter's version" of this on his Theme Time Radio Hour in March (and was rerun a few weeks ago, which is where I heard it, which inspired this blog post - a transcript of Dylan's introduction, and detailing more information about Harry McClintock the man who claims he wrote it in 1898 and often gets credit for it, although that claim has been challenged.

By: fcummins

fcummins — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:53:11 -0800

Gavin Bryars did an extraordinary and soothing composition built upon a recording he took from a down-and-out: Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet. (Background and sample at last link). Highly recommended.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:20:58 -0800

This is exactly how a thread on Metafilter should evolve... good work folks! (even to those of you that have, forever, turned this song dark for me! :-/ )

By: humannaire

humannaire — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 04:32:40 -0800

Wait. Flapjax got his own show? You know what that means? Ponies can't be far behind!

By: minimii

minimii — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:34:13 -0800

Flapjack is a weird and subversive show. I love it.

By: palliser

palliser — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 08:23:19 -0800

It sounds like the hobo-kid backstory has separate confirmation from that 1930 Hobo Handbook, but on the other hand, it's rarely possible to say what a folk song is "really" about. Certainly, McClintock's version shouldn't be considered necessarily definitive here. According to the Dreamtime podcast, he "made something of a career of claiming authorship of traditional songs that he didn't write," claiming to have written several songs when he was 15 or 16 that are clearly much older. And he lost a copyright infringement case in which he claimed to have written "Big Rock Candy Mountain"; the judge found that, rather, it was a traditional song that anyone could sing and record. The Hobo Handbook's backstory is a little more nuanced -- that the song was not itself used to lure young boys onto the road, but was an exaggerated portrayal of the "ghost stories" that were used that way.

By: lilac girl

lilac girl — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:18:21 -0800

I was so excited for this post because I thought it was about one of my favorite Wee Sing videos ever. I always thought the song was written for the video. And now that I know the backstory my favorite childhood videos is ruined...

By: Postroad

Postroad — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 09:30:04 -0800

The song reflects (no matter that there may be slightly other readings seen in it) what many cultures have: an escape to a much better place where all will be well: see: Shenendoah, as used by Eugene O'Neil; Over the Rainbow, The Blessed Isles, or even your wll-known Christian and Muslim Paradise.

By: GavinR

GavinR — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:30:08 -0800

Great, now I can't get the image of Captain K'nuckles buggering Flapjack out of my mind. =(

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:32:55 -0800

The Hobo Handbook's backstory is a little more nuanced -- that the song was not itself used to lure young boys onto the road, but was an exaggerated portrayal of the "ghost stories" that were used that way. I pretty much agree with your comment, except for the "exaggerated" part. While it's clear that the song is about an imaginary land, it is not unusual in it's portrayal. From Nowhere in America: the Big Rock Candy Mountain and Other Comic Utopias: 'Green tells of being tricked into leaving Alabama as a young man to travel to Arkansas: "They told us in Arkansas the hogs just laying around already baked with the knives and the forks sticking in them ready to be et; and there was fritters a-frying in them ponds of grease; and that there was money trees where all you had to do was pick the money offen them like picking corn off the stalk."'

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:51:41 -0800

'Green tells of being tricked into leaving Alabama as a young man to travel to Arkansas: "They told us in Arkansas the hogs just laying around already baked with the knives and the forks sticking in them ready to be et; and there was fritters a-frying in them ponds of grease; and that there was money trees where all you had to do was pick the money offen them like picking corn off the stalk."' Huh. I'm suddenly reminded of something I read a while back (I wanna say its from Calvino but I could be totally wrong) about the medieval peasant conception of Heaven - as a banquet that never ended in which hogs would serve themselves.

By: Artw

Artw — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:07:01 -0800

oneirodynia - more on Jockers here. I turned up a bunch of this stuff as a result of a typo a while back, and as I said at the time, it seems like it should be made up by John Hodgeman, but aparently isn't.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 12:27:24 -0800

the medieval peasant conception of Heaven - as a banquet that never ended in which hogs would serve themselves. What fools they were. Everybody knows that's not Heaven, but the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

By: Haruspex

Haruspex — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:35:21 -0800

BRCM is an avatar of The Land of Cockaigne, which is itself an echo of an echo. Apparently it's avatars all the way down.

By: Pallas Athena

Pallas Athena — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:39:43 -0800

I grew up listening to the Burl Ives version. The version from the beginning of O Brother seems to describe a hobo's equivalent to the sailor's Fiddler's Green. The fact that they end that version with "I'll see you all this comin' fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountain" makes it extra bitter. [omg, there's a cavalry version of Fiddler's Green. Mudcat.org is awesome.]

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:46:16 -0800

I grew up listening to the Cisco Houston version. He, in turn, may well have picked it up from Woodie Guthrie.

By: TheDailyRhyme

TheDailyRhyme — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:08:38 -0800

As a kid I first heard the song on an album by The Grasshoppers, a blatant knockoff of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Back then the cigarette trees seemed the most subversive thing about it. Later I was delighted to discover the lines about cops with wooden legs and jails made of tin.

By: pdxjmorris

pdxjmorris — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:50:05 -0800

I had tears come to my eyes when I saw #1300 entry of the LOL Cats cartoons of Adam Koford (Apelad) - a wonderful presentation of BRCM featuring, of course, Pip and Kitteh, the hobo cats: http://www.flickr.com/photos/apelad/4167973615/

By: kenlayne

kenlayne — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:24:26 -0800

.... the medieval peasant conception of Heaven - as a banquet that never ended in which hogs would serve themselves. Hahaha, isn't that *every* conception of heaven? It's all the shit you don't have or aren't allowed in your culture. The thirsty & horny Bedouin trader dreams of an oasis full of sexy young things, the poor & powerless exile in the Roman Empire dreams of his own city (with streets paved in gold!), and the evangelical American uncomfortable with humanist democracy dreams of a King to worship in the afterlife. There was a teevee preacher when I was growing up who promised "Pie in the sky, with ice cream on top." Reverend Ike was his name. Poor people in America used to consider sweets a luxury. The weird charm of Big Rock Candy Mountain is in the mundane dreams of the poor hobo. He wasn't ambitious enough in his fantasy world to imagine a life without being jailed on a regular basis. He just wanted the jail walls to be made of tin, so he could easily break out.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:03:12 -0800

The weird charm of Big Rock Candy Mountain is in the mundane dreams of the poor hobo. He wasn't ambitious enough in his fantasy world to imagine a life without being jailed on a regular basis. He just wanted the jail walls to be made of tin, so he could easily break out. Well, yes of course, which is why it was used in O Brother Where Art Thou. The wild dreams of the men in the movie (and in the song) are just so sad, basic Maslow hierarchy stuff. "Pie in the sky" - Are you referring the famous Salvation Army parody "Work all day, and sleep on hay, and you'll get a pie in the sky when you die"? Hahaha, isn't that *every* conception of heaven? Well in the passage I remember reading, it was being contrasted with the scholar's conception of an empty dune for all eternity. So I guess it's more "people who aren't sure where they're next meal is coming from and who have to work impossibly hard for scarps have a similar concept of heaven."

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:17:04 -0800

Also the indication in the thread that the song was meant to be a humorous exaggeration explains some of the tin jail lines of my these nits are so nice, I'll just pick at them s'more.

By: PHINC

PHINC — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:42:06 -0800

Cool post. I remember this song from an elementary text book from the 70s. Specifically, how the jails are made of tin and when you get in them you can get right out again.

By: grubi

grubi — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:04:26 -0800

Reminds me how I wanted to rewrite and record the song in mid-2008 as "Barack Candy Mountain" as a parody/homage to the optimism of the Obama campaign. wouldn'ta that been OSSUM?

By: quin

quin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:32:19 -0800

GavinR : The soundtrack to that movie is absolutely where I first got hooked on the song. Me as well. And it helped to perfectly set the tone for the rest of the film. *knows what I'm watching tonight*

By: Mr. Anthropomorphism

Mr. Anthropomorphism — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 12:38:26 -0800

To be fair, Burl Ives is probably drunk, too.

By: agent of bad karma

agent of bad karma — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:10:39 -0800

The weird charm of Big Rock Candy Mountain is in the mundane dreams of the poor hobo. He wasn't ambitious enough in his fantasy world to imagine a life without being jailed on a regular basis. He just wanted the jail walls to be made of tin, so he could easily break out. posted by kenlayne at 10:24 PM That always stood out for me as well. Even when anything the singer had anything he wanted at his finger tips, he was still going to commit crimes. They already "hung the jerk that invented work", what other crime was there to do? I always assumed that this song was about an old hobo knowing he wasn't going to survive another year. The big rock candy mountain was his heaven. Now I don't think I will be able to listen to it again without thinking of it as the hobo recruiting song.

By: Cookiebastard

Cookiebastard — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:37:34 -0800

It sort of reminds me of This Land is Your Land, which also is often performed in a truncated version to avoid the darker ending.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:59:47 -0800

GO ON.

By: theredpen

theredpen — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:22:09 -0800

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Land_Is_Your_Land Interesting.