Tom Hodgkinson on the medieval roots of an Idler theme song…

Those of you who attend our Thursday night “Drink with the Idler” events (click here for the new season) will know that our theme tune is an old hobo song called “Big Rock Candy Mountains” by Harry McClintock.

The song conjures up a hobo’s paradise, where cigarettes grow on trees and eggs appear soft-boiled. It was apparently based on a much earlier poem called “The Land of Cockaygne”, a medieval peasant’s version of paradise.

According to historian AL Morton, the Land of Cockaygne was a pre-communist revolutionary concept that featured bohemian ideals such as no private property and equality between the sexes.

Memorably painted by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in his 1567 painting, the anonymous author of the fantasy imagined Cockaygne as a land of no work, free booze and plentiful food. Maybe George Michael had it in mind when he wrote “Club Tropicana”. As the poem goes:

There are rivers broad and fine
Of oil, milk, honey and of wine

Every man may drink his fill
And needn’t sweat to pay the bill.

Another key feature of the Land of Cockaygne was free love. Monks and nuns cavorted freely. After prayers, the nuns throw their clothes off and jump into the lake:

When the young monks see that sport,
Straightway thither they resort,
And coming to the nuns anon,
Each monk taketh to him one,
And, swiftly bearing forth his prey,
Carries her to the Abbey grey,
And teaches her an orison,
Jigging up and jigging down.

In this land of plenty, ready-roasted larks fly into your mouth and little pigs run down the street crying, “Eat me, eat me!” One couplet ran: “No place on earth compares to this/For sheer delightfulness and bliss.” The Land of Cockaygne influenced George Orwell: in Animal Farm, Moses preaches to the animals of a land called Sugarcandy Mountain, “where we poor animals shall rest forever from our labours”.

The lyrics for “Big Rock Candy Mountains” have much in common with the Land of Cockaygne, plus the added spice of authority figures who are comically disabled.

I leave you with the lyrics for quiet study and for learning on the ukulele.

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
Besides 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
And 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 ain’t 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 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 ’em
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 out again,
As soon as you are in
There ain’t no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws or picks,
I’m a goin’ to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the Turk [sometimes changed to “jerk”]
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I’ll see you all this coming Fall
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.

PS: Our forthcoming book Thirty Years of the Idler: A Visual History is now available for pre-order here. Price is £30 plus £4.99 post and packing in the UK (more overseas). Some of you were confused because the price quoted is £30 but you were asked for £34.99 at checkout. This is because £4.99 has been added for P&P (and we’re going to make that clearer).

PPS: We’re taking bookings for our autumn season of A Drink with the Idler. Roll up for Griff Rhys Jones, Georgia Mann, Guy Standing, Cory Doctorow, Louise Winter, Emma Southon, Rupert Sheldrake and Anna Keay. Free for subscribers.

SELECTED COMMENTS

These comments were mailed to us after an earlier version of this piece was sent out as a newsletter. We like to publish a selection and reserve the right to edit them for clarity. Feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts.

Sir: Fascinating stuff as ever. Two things strike me. If the nuns are carried away and viewed as “prey”, it doesn’t sound like they’re terribly up for it. And did the pigs influence Douglas Adams and his “pig that wants to be eaten”?
Helen

Sir: “Big Rock Candy Mountains”, a favourite radio song from 1950s childhood – Burl Ives, I think. Then there was this, ultimate idling.
Duncan

Sir: In 1954, I was 10 years old and my dad took me to the Royal Festival Hall to see Burl Ives. When he asked if there were any requests I shouted “Big Rock Candy Mountain” and he went on to play it. My Uncle Floyd, during the Depression, left our Nebraska family farm to try to make some money on the West Coast. He milked cows, picked apples and rode back home in boxcars, avoiding the “railway bulls”.
Craig Sams

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