BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN 

BY BURL IVES (DECCA, 1956)

I had a record when I was a kid called “Burl Ives Sings For Fun”, and it made such an impression on me that I can still recall all the songs. In fact, twenty years later, I won my first professional, New York acting job by auditioning with one of the tunes from that collection: The Fox….”The fox went out on the prowl one night, begged to the moon to give him light, he had many a mile to go that night, before he reached the town-O….” 

Burl’s high tenor stirred something deep within me, and still does - In Big Rock Candy Mountain, when he goes into that slow vocal ascent with the buuuuzzzzzinnnn of the bees, my heart swells. This still happens, despite my ambivalence toward what Burl personally did to save his career during the blacklist of the 1950s.

I discovered that taint while in the Smithsonian doing some research on folk music, and I ran across a Burl Ives Sea Chantey songbook reviewed by Pete Seeger in Sing Out magazine. Pete admitted that he liked the book, and reflected that some might think that strange, given the fact that Burl was “a stool pigeon.” This upset me so much that I ended up writing a play about the betrayal of their relationship during that period. But, if Pete could forgive Burl, as he did 41 years later, when they appeared together at a benefit concert shortly before Burl’s death, so can I.

Big Rock Candy Mountain is one of the songs on that album. Originally written and recorded by Harry McClintock in 1928, Big Rock Candy Mountain is described as an idyllic destination, imagined by an un-housed man, and it evokes a feeling of comfort, warmth, and joy for me. Check it out and see if you don’t feel better, too.