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The Big Rock Candy Mountain

© Thomas James Martin

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
There's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out ev'ry night.
~Traditonal Hobo Ballad, (Often attributed to Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock)

One of the first songs that I remember enjoying as a child and that I used to play over and over again on my cheap, little portable record player was The Big Rock Candy Mountains. It was on a little yellow record (a 45 rpm) along with A Tisket, A Tasket, A Red & Yellow Basket and a few other songs that I no longer remember but were intended just for children.

The version on the child's record was quite a bit more sanitized than the actual hobo ballad. The "alcohol springs" that "come a-tricklin' down the rocks" of the original become "lemonade springs" in the children's song. Likewise the sanitized version does not mention police truncheons turning to rubber and railroad "bulls" with wooden legs.

Where the boxcars are all empty
And the sun shines ev'ry day
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

Still, once again about 40 years later, I find myself utterly fascinated with the song since hearing it again, this time in the movie,"O Brother, Where Art Thou." Playing it over and over, grateful for the tonal quality and handy index of the CD rather than the tinny overtones of my old but beloved and now defunct record player. Obviously, this song strikes a deep chord in me.

Oh, the buzzin' of the bees in the peppermint trees
'Round the soda water fountains
Where the lemonade springs and the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

The artist who sings this song in such a rhythmic but raspy sing-song voice with such wonderful phrasing seems right out of the lawless, almost mythical 1930s, the era that defined so many of the attitudes and sensibilities of the parents of the baby boomer generation. But, this is not an essay about the grim but fascinating era of the Great Depression.

Rather, it is about that longing for the perfect land and easy living, where everything goes right all the time; where there are no headaches or trips to the dentist or complaints from the boss-Just pure, unadulterated joy all the time. Heaven, Nirvana,the Happy Hunting Grounds, Honalee. . .The Big Rock Candy Mountains are just a few of the names of the ideal world of some of humanity's deepest longings and fondest dreams.

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