479. The Big Rock Candy Mountain (Harry McClintock)

This song is a turn of the century hobo ballad possibly inspired by a broadside ballad called "An Invitation to Lubberland", first printed in 1685. It is generally attributed to Harry McClintock (8 October 1882 - 24 April 1957), though he failed in a lawsuit when he attempted to enforce copyright.

The song was first recorded by Harry McClintock (also known as Haywire Mac) in 1928, but reached a larger audience when released by Burl Ives in 1949. A version by Dorsey Burnette (1960) became a big hit, and there has been a recent revival when the McClintock recording was used in the movie, "O Brother Where Art Thou?" (2000)

McClintock first sang the song as a street busker in 1897. The song originally described a child being recruited into hobo life by tales of a "big rock candy mountain". Such recruitment actually occurred, with hobos enchanting children with tales of adventure to lead them astray.

The song was cleaned up considerably before McClintock recorded it, and it has since been sanitised further to make it a children's song, with all references to cigarette trees, streams of alcohol and lakes of gin and whiskey eliminated. The cigarettes were probably the last to go as in those days they were recommended by doctors as useful for calming the nerves!

A variation of the song, under the title, "The Appleknocker's Lament", was collected in 1927 by the Library of Congress.

The Burl Ives version of this song was one of my favourite recordings from my parents' collection of 78s when I was a child, and certainly one of the songs that introduced me to the wonderful world of folk music. My rendition here is based on that Burl Ives recording, though I think he did fewer verses.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• folk
• song
• hobo
• bum
• big
• rock
• candy
• mountain
• haywire
• mac
• burl
• ives

[sniperxx1230]

My Dad sang this song to me a lot of years ago

[raymondcrooke]

@sniperxx1230 It looks like a lot of Dads sang this song. I don't remember mine singing it, but it was certainly part of his record collection.

[1958wvpicker]

Howdy Raymond

thanks for the history lesson on this great old song

now your taking me back to my childhood

my dad used to sing this one to me all the time

the Burl Ives version

great job

Rich

[raymondcrooke]

@1958wvpicker I don't remember my dad singing it, but I heard it often from his record collection.

[Molliejam123]

nice. but this isn't harry mcclintocks version. it's burl ives version

[raymondcrooke]

@Molliejam123 You're right, but McClintock is the original writer. I always try to give credit to the writer in the title.

[fstwrtr]

Yikes!...

[spookydream]

Very good!

[bappreciated]

Enjoyable!

[raymondcrooke]

Thanks for watching.