Big Rock Candy Mountain

"Big Rock Candy Mountain", first recorded by Harry McClintock in 1928, is a song about a hobo's idea of paradise, a modern version of the medieval concept of Cockaigne. It is a place where "hens lay soft boiled eggs" and there are "cigarette trees." McClintock claims to have written the song in 1895 based on tales from his misspent youth hoboing through the United States, but some believe the song, or at least aspects of it, have existed for far longer.

Read more about Big Rock Candy Mountain:  History, Actual Location, Recordings, Other Uses

Famous quotes containing the words candy mountain, big, rock, candy and/or mountain:

    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.
    —Unknown. The Big Rock Candy Mountains (l. 5–8)

    The big toad sits in my writing room
    preventing me from writing. I am a flower
    who dries out under her hot breath.
    Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?
    Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)

    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.
    —Unknown. The Big Rock Candy Mountains (l. 5–8)

    Come live with me and be my Love,
    And we will all the pleasures prove
    That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
    Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

    And we will sit upon the rocks,
    And see the shepherds feed their flocks
    By shallow rivers, to whose falls
    Melodious birds sing madrigals.
    Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)