"Big Bad John" is a country song originally performed by Jimmy Dean and composed by Dean and Roy Acuff. Released in September 1961, by the beginning of November it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and won Dean the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song and its sequels tell a story typical of American folklore, reminiscent of Paul Bunyan or John Henry. Big Bad John was also the title of a 1990 television movie starring Dean.
Read more about Big Bad John: Story, Reception, Chart Performance, History, Political Parodies
Famous quotes containing the words big, bad and/or john:
“Sure is big country. The only thing bigger is the sky. Looks like God made it and forgot to put people in it.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)
“The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“But I’m his poor shepherd, as plain you may see,
That am come to beg pardon for him and for me.””
—Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 99–100)