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Hoboes, Rubbish, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”

Hoboes, Rubbish, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” GRAHAM RAULERSON Hoboes, Rubbish, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” In 2004, fast-food chain Burger King introduced a new television ad- vertisement into heavy rotation. The spot opens with a black-and-white image of singer Darius Rucker (most famous for his work with rock band Hootie and the Blowfish) dressed in an elaborately embroidered and sequined cowboy-style Nudie suit reminiscent of the costumes worn by 1940s singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar (and further backed up by unseen musicians playing a pedal steel guitar, bass, and drums), Rucker begins to sing: “When my belly starts a-rumblin’ and I’m jonesin’ for a treat, I close my eyes for a big surprise: the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch.” Rucker borrows his tune from “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” a work most recently popularized by the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). There, the song helps to establish the film’s geographical and chronological setting (that is, the rural United States in the 1930s), and to associate the film’s trio of protagonists—characters whose flight from a chain gang is accompanied by the song—with the innocent simplicity and fantastical, aspirational optimism portrayed in “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Rucker ’s http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Music University of Illinois Press

Hoboes, Rubbish, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain”

Raulerson, Graham.
American Music , Volume 31 (4) – Mar 28, 2014
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Publisher
University of Illinois Press
ISSN
1945-2349

Abstract

GRAHAM RAULERSON Hoboes, Rubbish, and “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” In 2004, fast-food chain Burger King introduced a new television ad- vertisement into heavy rotation. The spot opens with a black-and-white image of singer Darius Rucker (most famous for his work with rock band Hootie and the Blowfish) dressed in an elaborately embroidered and sequined cowboy-style Nudie suit reminiscent of the costumes worn by 1940s singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Accompanying himself on an acoustic guitar (and further backed up by unseen musicians playing a pedal steel guitar, bass, and drums), Rucker begins to sing: “When my belly starts a-rumblin’ and I’m jonesin’ for a treat, I close my eyes for a big surprise: the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch.” Rucker borrows his tune from “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” a work most recently popularized by the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). There, the song helps to establish the film’s geographical and chronological setting (that is, the rural United States in the 1930s), and to associate the film’s trio of protagonists—characters whose flight from a chain gang is accompanied by the song—with the innocent simplicity and fantastical, aspirational optimism portrayed in “The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” Rucker ’s

Journal

American Music – University of Illinois Press

Published: Mar 28, 2014

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