Big Rock Candy Mountain song

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by foghorn, Jul 25, 2021.

  1. foghorn Valued Senior Member

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    I have just come upon something that now puzzles me...
    When I was at primary school, aged about seven, I remember on some afternoons we had to sit on the Hall floor around the music teacher's piano.

    I was never any good at picking up words to songs, so, it's rather odd that I can remember the opening few words from 'Big Rock Candy Mountain.'

    Since those school days I have never heard this song on shows or media (well, not very often.)

    I recently caught myself singing those few words and thought I would at last look them up on Google.

    I am now puzzled by... Why did the music teacher teach us to sing a song about down and outs?

    I don't think any of us young kids would have any idea (back then) what the song was about?

    The song words...

    Two versions,

    First version has the line ''Where they hung the jerk that invented work''.


    Second version has the line ''Where a bum can stay for many a day, and he won’t need any money.''

    https://www.lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/b/bigrockcandymountain.html

    Ps. Am I blogging?
    Pss. Would anyone like to jam with me?
     
    sculptor likes this.
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  3. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    It's on the sound track of O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

    Another olde song in a similar vein is, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum.

    Back in the seventies, I heard a song on the juke box in a bar once. I remembered almost every word until, many years later I found it on a cassette in the bargain bin - Roland The Headless Thomson Gunner, by Warren Zevon (maybe best known for Werewolves of London). Today, Roland The Headless Thomson Gunner is the only song I have on my phone.

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  5. candy Valued Senior Member

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    I remember my dad having an lp with this song on it. I can not remember who sang it.
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Yuppers. Got the CD. Amazing sound track.
     
  8. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    Aside, I guess,

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    Maybe art is an attempt to explain what we are too ignorant to know exactly.

    And I wanted to post this remake of a song - it's like everyone can remember the verses but can't remember which band originally made the song.

     
  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    phil collins

     
  10. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Was good the first million times I heard it.

    If I never hear it again, it will be too soon.
     
  11. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Wasn't that Dylan's hero Woody Guthrie who sung about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl refugees.
    eg This Land is Your Land

    Who will write songs to remember the Covid Pandemic years.

    Who will commemorate the years of Trumpian Disinformation and manipulation of the willing fools?
     
  12. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    helluva good artist
    but
    poor guy, suffers from depression
    but, in his day
    (40 years ago)
    he was in his hay day

    ..........................................
    should i play it again,
    just for you?
     
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  13. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    You played it for her...
     
  14. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    You could probably get it on wax cylinders.

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    A friend of mine used to have an old, old, old gramophone that played cylinders. He had such classics as Marching Through Georgia and My Pretty Quadroon
     
  15. foghorn Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, I did like that film and one of the few times I have heard it. They used an original 1928 recording of Harry McClintock singing there.
    I can only think my old music teacher must have thought us kids in that class had no chance in later life, hence teaching us 'Big Rock Candy Mountain'.

    I thought at first by the title, it had something to do with WW1, but it's modern day mercenary. I don't like your taste in music

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    It seems others besides Harry McClintock 1928 ( O Brother, Where Art Thou?) have sung it... see my OP link.

    I like some of Guthrie's stuff. But he would have been only 16 in 1928 when that old guy is singing it at the opening of O Brother.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2021
  16. gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    Burl Ives did a sanitized version of Big Rock Candy Mountain. He turned it into something resembling a children's song.
     
  17. geordief Valued Senior Member

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    Thought this was gas ( Burl Ives in 1955)

    @17.40

    Reminds me of Jack Nicholson
     
  18. foghorn Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks for that, that sent me a looking...
    Hopefully this was the version the music teacher was teaching us. Unless that teacher was working out her notice that week???
     
  19. gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    Another, even more sanitized, version:

     
  20. foghorn Valued Senior Member

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    Yuk! Sickly sweet.
     

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