Talk:The Big Rock Candy Mountains

a country folk song about a hobo's idea of paradise
Sigh ... no, it is NOT. It's a warning about the horrors of the hobo lifestyle, at least for children. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.18.129 (talk) 13:46, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

[Untitled]
It does make sense for police to have wooden legs in a hobo's paradise, because then the police can't catch the hobos when they run. Same with bars of tin--they would make for an easy escape. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.133.211 (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I may be reading this article wrong, but if McClintock claimed to have written the song in 1897, wouldn't it be in the public domain by now anyway? - Hephaestos 23:18 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Maybe--IANAL. Then again, if Burl Ives turns out to own it, then it's still protected. --Len.

Haven't we reached a stage when this song is no longer "best remembered" from a 1940s Burl Ives recording? -Acjelen 21:42, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I fail to see what Burger King contributes to the history of Big Rock Candy Mountain. So they used a perversion to hype some poorly named sandwich? Yep, that really sucks. They got Hootie to help them suck. The suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked, this side of the golden arches.

I have this soing on my computer, (it was recorded from a wax cylinder)and it mentions nothing of a whiskey lake... but it does metion a lake of stew

"there's a lake of stew, and whiskey too, you can paddle all around them in a big canoe, in the big rock candy mountains"

I thought that it said "There's a lake of stew, and of whiskey too. You can paddle all around them in a big canoe, in the big rock candy mountains."

I'd think that "them" would refer to at least two lakes. Julyo 02:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Original last verse?
The article currently says that McClintock first sang the last verse of the song like this:
 * 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.

Where does that information come from? There's no citation. And what about this word "jocker"? The only dictionary I can find it is the Urban Dictionary -- hardly a reliable source. The second meaning it gives makes sense in the context of this verse -- "A homosexual hobo who lives by begging his male companion for money" -- but if that's really a legitimate slang that has been around since the 1890s, how is it that Oxford and other dictionaries hasn't heard of it? Anyway, a reference for these lyrics is really needed. Joel Bastedo 20:00, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have found the term in several collections of hobo jargon which agree that a jocker is an experienced hobo who teaches young "punks" the ways of the street, and that the relationship of jocker and punk is often sexual. So that must be what McClintock meant. Joel Bastedo 16:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

In the introduction to the 2006 Rutgers print edition of The Road by Jack London, republished as "The Road (Subterranean Lives)", page xxvii, Todd DePastino writes:


 * Far more common than sex between hoboes of equal status were the predatory relationships between veterans of the road, called "Jockers" or "wolves," and younger initiates, known as "lambs," "prushuns," or "punks."

DePastino does not appear to cite a source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.81.229.96 (talk) 02:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * The lyrics for the original final verse are published on page 204 of John Greenway's 1953 survey American Folksongs of Protest (University of Pennsylvania Press). However, Greenway omits the "To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore" line in favor of "To be * * * * * * * *".  Greenway's recording of the song substitutes another line entirely.  Greenway says that McClintock's claims to authorship are based largely on his proliferation of these lyrics.  Unfortunately, Greenway provides no citations.  I've been trying for over a year to find a credible source for the "buggered sore" line, with no success (I've spoken about this with a few hobo scholars and musicians, and they don't know where it came from either).  Can anyone provide a source for this? Skrelnek 07:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Check the Gordon Inferno Collection, parts of which are on line. Referrence given to the Appleknocker.Pustelnik 02:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

What bugs me is: that line doesn't fit the beat of the song. There's two lines missing.. Lines 5 and 6 should sound like lines 1 and 2, then be followed by 3 rhyming lines and then 'the big rock candy mountain.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.182.149.81 (talk) 00:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I have extreme doubts about this so called 'lost verse" it has a very weak cite and it looks more like the sort of ribalb stuff written AFTER a song becomes popular. I think we shoudl delete it. 23:44, 21 October 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wulfy95113 (talk • contribs)


 * The original version of the song had a different tune than either the familiar McClintock version (as heard in the opening titles of O Brother, Where Art Thou? or Burl Ives's version. Unfortunately, the tune seems to have been lost.Skrelnek (talk) 00:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I might be reviving a dead thread a bit, but I also have doubts about the accuracy of this verse. I noted that in this mudcat thread: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=4571 they seem to discuss how "buggered sore like a hobo's whore" would fit the verse, and user Jim Dixon seemingly just came up with it on the spot, based on some suggestions from Bennet Zurofsky. I wonder if this line (the citation we use here seems to be considerably newer than this mudcat thread) is an example of citogenesis. Zortwort (talk) 23:52, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Ive restored the asterisks, and to anyone browsing by that says it's cited, please look at the date and remember that sometimes books make it into print based on information they found on Wikipedia. Which is what we apparently call citogenesis. — Soap — 11:21, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Title
Shouldn't this be at Big Rock Candy Mountains? The real-life Utah mountain may be singular, but the song title and the lyrics are plural. Kafziel Talk 13:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Feel free to ignore my ignorance of this topic, but the song seems to exist in both singular and plural versions. —Frungi 01:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
 * This is correct. Harry McClintock, Catherine Britt, and a few others use the plural.  Most others (Cisco Houston, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Tex Ritter, the Beat Farmers, etc.) use the singular.  –Skrelnek 05:17, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Easter special
Unlike the other entries in the list of recordings, this one is incomplete and does not establish its notability, so I moved it here: Is it a TV or radio special? Who produced it? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 07:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The song was used in the 1977 easter special,"The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town".

LGBT Category
I've removed the Category:LGBT-related songs for two reasons: -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:29, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) The reference in the last verse is oblique at best - "to be buggered sore like a hobo's whore" refers to a sexual act, not to the singer's (?) sexuality.
 * 2) Even if you accept that line as somehow LGBT, it's one line from a verse that only appears in the original version, not any later ones.

Also see the fairly good Wiki article on Situational_homosexuality. truthdowser (talk) 14:44, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Could someone get a photo of the Big Rock Candy Mountains? The link has broken pictures. {81.231.181.61 17:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)}

Boiled in oil?
The version I remember from childhood had the line, "where they boiled in oil the inventor of toil". However, this version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqowmHgxVJQ has the line "where they hung the Turk who invented work" instead. Which one is the "correct" line? --68.60.20.201 (talk) 17:32, 11 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There isn't a "correct" version of the lyrics, really. The lyrics have differed at least a little virtually every time the song has been recorded or published, and since the song's authorship is a matter of controversy, there isn't anybody who can give us a definitive version of the song.Skrelnek (talk) 00:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Gil McLachlan
I can't seem to find any citation for Gil McLachlan's version. A Google search reveals only sources that cites this article.03:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)99.226.242.7 (talk)

Attached (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.163.35 (talk) 08:41, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for pointing this out. I've read this talk page several times before and somehow didn't notice your comment in all this time. — Soap — 13:50, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Copyright status
I've been trying to find out if this song is still under copyright or not, and I'm having trouble tracking it down. Several sources online claim that somebody named Mack tried to copyright the song in 1906, McClintock sued, and that the song was ruled to be in the public domain, but evidence of that suit is not forthcoming. I did find a suit filed by McClintock's estate in 2007 for the Burger King commercial, wherein the estate claimed that it held the copyright. Burger King disagreed, but they settled out of court, so there's no official ruling on the matter that I can see.

I know the song will pass into the public domain in a couple of years either way, but it'd be nice to know if it's been free the whole time or not. 129.237.90.161 (talk) 21:10, 17 October 2019 (UTC)