Hal Rammel's book is 'Nowhere in America: The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Other Comic Utopias', University of Illinois Press, 1990. MacClintock's version of "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" from 'The Hoboes Hornbook', 1930, is on p. 26.

A couple of years ago I listened to that album with the McClintock interview about Big Rock Candy Mountain, and was disappointed that he didn't sing his original version. But do I understand correctly that the book Bruce mentioned above has the adult version of the song mentioned in the interview? Or does it have the version sung by MacClintock on the interview album?

That song was one that my father sang when I was a child, but it was never sung to us as if it were a children's song. I would argue that it isn't a "utopian" world but more some kind of nirvana or beulah land. Utopian is more social and political. Or did MacClintock's original version come laced with enough irony or social commentary to fit into a political context?

SRS