The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4571   Message #4031262
Posted By: Joe Offer
30-Jan-20 - 11:10 PM
Thread Name: Origins: The Big Rock Candy Mountain(s)
Subject: RE: Origins: The Big Rock Candy Mountain(s)
Hi, Joe - yes, the interesting piece of research has it, but does not give its source.

Another excerpt: BIG ROCK  In Hollywood on September 6, 1928, he recorded his most famous song ‘The Big Rock Candy Mountains.’ Postcards with the printed lyrics show that he had composed the song about 1906 by cleaning up an older bawdy song sung by hobos. The original song was about hoboes molesting children along the railroad and in the hobo jungles. The bawdy original has not survived but the words of the last stanza were

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.”

One stanza was lifted from an old song called ‘The Dying Hobo.’