Talk:Going Up the Country

The song was not written by any member of Canned Heat. It was written and recorded in 1928 by a black gentleman named Henry Thomas.

Original Research
I have deleted an unsourced, spurious edit made by user 98.248.239.141 which stated, "who was credited with writing the song, but it is obvious that he stole both the chord progression and melody from the Henry Thomas song "Bulldoze Blues" and only changed the lyrics." I can find several sources (not particularly reliable sources) that claim that Going Up the Country was inspired by "Bulldoze Blues," and even some that claim it is a cover, but none that say that Canned Heat "stole" the song. 70.116.134.225 (talk) 04:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Perfect, without reliable sources that claim should be removed. Nice catch.Beefcake6412 (talk) 04:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Adam Wilson of Canned Heat took credit for this song without attribution. The melody, chord structure, and solo breaks are identical to the 1928 recording; only the lyrics have been changed. If the 1928 recording were still covered by copyright, the Canned Heat version would have been an infringement. "Stole" may not be an appropriate word, but plagiarism clearly is. 2601:642:4100:D272:FC02:90E3:5706:2E0F (talk) 19:57, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Canned Heat took credit for the lyrics, and gave credit for the notes to Henry Thomas. Lots of bluesmen's tunes were being reworked in the 60's, and the artists were very vocal about giving credit to the original. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.72.88.128 (talk) 00:00, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

'Cause there's a brand new game that I don't wanna play
Most "sources" like lyrica portals have it as "'Cause there's a brand new game that I wanna play"

http://www.songtexte.com/songtext/canned-heat/going-up-the-country-1bd7ed58.html has it as 'Cause there's a brand new game that I don't want to play

But on the record at woodstock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2t4ChnIWqw You can clearly hear it as "I don't wanna play".

And why would this song become the "unofficial anthem" of woodstock, in '68 if not for this line that would mean they do not want to play that game of the Vietnam proxy war and therefore even might leave the USA in order to evade being drawn for military service.

Anybody got more sources about that?--Manorainjan (talk) 14:13, 23 February 2015 (UTC)