“The Big Rock Candy Mountain” – a song once written by Harry Kirby McClintock in 1928 – has come to new fame since its appearance in Joel and Ethan Coen’s film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” which is set in the American south of the 1930′s.  The song’s title refers to something we have all vaguely heard of before: A Land of Milk and Honey, a ficticious place where the streets are paved with pastry pies, and freshly roasted doves fly straight into your mouth. “…where cops have wooden legs, where bulldogs all have rubber teeth, and hens lay soft-boiled eggs…” are  some of the lyrics of this intrumental ballad that has now added famously to the Coen brothers’ exceptional and rather hilarious re-make of Homer’s Odyssey.

The film was released in 2000, but this original ballad has its roots deep in the heart of America, from a time round about the Great Depression of the 1930′s, when industry was in its infancy, goings were very rough, and “nobody had nuttin’”. When I started looking for information on this very funny and almost cheeky concept of paradise, I found myself digging into a treasure chest that lay much deeper in history’s sands than being just of this century:  indeed the trail did not stop until I found myself in medieval Europe, where the first recordings of ‘The Land of Cockaigne’ have inspired people to take refuge in song and verse in order to ease the pain and hardship of a life of labour.

‘The Land of Cockaigne’ (which rhymes on ‘stockade’) is an early conception of this land of plenty which has gained quite a following world-wide, thus you will probably recognise one or other of these terms used for the immortal sugar donut of our dreams: Lubberland (Swedish); Luilekkerland (Dutch); Schlaraffenland (German); or Jauja (Spanish) (- the only one I am not trying to pronounce right now).

Harry Kirby McClintock is lionized as a Great American now for his sentimental and comforting vision for an American people who were in dire need of solace in that day. “The Great American Bum”, as he was tenderly called, was born in 1882 in Knoxville Tennesse (if you don’t believe me, just look it up on Wikipedia), and died in 1957, 74 years of age. He went by many names and had many adventures, starting with running away to the circus as a child, and sailing as far as Africa and the Philippines as a civilian in his adult life. He eventually returned to the American west to work the railroad like his father before him, all the while writing poetry, organising unions and making songs in an era seeped in an atmosphere of desolation and struggling industrial growth; the wild and unsupervised vast railroad network serving as habitat to the first generations of urban hobos, bums and ‘railway children’ of America. (This grew out later into the ‘Beatnik’ movement, but more about that some other time.)

In the face of all this misery, Harry – Haywire Mac – McClintock finds it in his heart to draw upon the inspiration of a broadside ballad from 1685! called “Invitation to Lubberland” “…the fountains flow with brandy, the rocks are like refined gold, the hills are sugar candy…“, and write his own little number which made it to #1 on the Country Music Charts of 1939, and has recently been revived, thanks to Joel and Ethan Coen and their bizarre talent for great films.

With enormous pleasure I discovered this recently made very cute little animation video to McClintock’s great song by an independent Dublin artist on the net, which proves that tales of fabulous laziness and infinite bounty still are a popular concept with us all. And, in view of our steadfast pillaging of the earth’s non-renewable resources, we have almost achieved this state of human paradise, why, you just have to look at the shelves in your local supermarket; the place is overflowing already. Providing that we don’t mention the true price of that paradise, and mind we shield our eyes when crossing the open country of any great nation.

The lyrics to Harry McClintock’s “Big Rock Candy Mountain”

One evening as the sun went down, and the jungle fire was burning
Down the track came a hobo hiking, and he said boys I’m not turning
I’m headed for a land that’s far away, beside the crystal fountains
So come with me, we’ll go and see the big rock candy mountains

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 every night
Where the boxcars all are empty, and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees, the cigarette trees,
The lemonade springs, where the bluebird sings
In the big rock candy mountains

In the big rock candy mountains, all the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth, and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers trees are full of fruit, and the barns are full of hay
Oh, I’m bound to go, where there aint no snow
Where the rain don’t fall, the wind don’t blow
In the big rock candy mountains

In the big rock candy mountains, you never change your socks
And the little streams of alcohol, come a trickling down the rocks
The brakemen have to tip their hats, and the railroad bulls are blind
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

In the big rock candy mountains, the jails are made of tin
And you can walk right our again, as soon as you are in
There aint no short-handle shovels, no axes, saws, or picks
I’ma gonna stay, where you sleep all day
Where they hung the jerk, that invented work
In the big rock candy mountains

I’ll see you all, this coming fall
In the big rock candy mountains

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