I love that song anyway but this is a very clever and real version for today. Good job to the artist!
Here’s the 1963 version of that song, inspired by New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, the leading liberal Republican of his day. It comes from an LP entitled “Folk Songs For Conservatives,” recorded by Noel X & the Unbleached Muslims
Rock’s Big Candy Mountain
On a brisk March morn with his starch all gone,
He lost it in New Hampshire.
Come a tattered swell on the road to hell,
It was Rocky, that’s for damn sure.
He’s headin’ for a land getting’ further away,
He’ll see no marble fountain,
But listen to him call, “see you all next fall
Up at Rock’s big candy mountain.”
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain,
You ought to pay your tax.
But along about election time,
You sit back and relax.
‘Cause the coffers ain’t so empty,
And the bureaucrats are blind.
And there’s plenty there for you
And the Puerto Ricans, too,
Not to mention Jimmy Hoffa and his teamsters true
On Rock’s big candy mountain.
Oh, the welfare state, where everything’s great,
‘Cause we got deep earth accountin’.
If your checks all bounce, we’ve got Chase accounts
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain.
He had a battered look, for he had mistook
A White Castle for a fallout shelter.
And up at Mount Desert, folks had acted curt,
And things were helter-skelter.
But he plugged away in a one-horse shay,
No sign of his dismountin’,
But despite the bans, he laid his plans
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain.
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain
There’ll be no Daily News
To raise a fuss, make it hard for us,
Takin’ license with our views.
We’ll have tame district attorneys.
The law will have no bite,
And instead of affidavits,
Rock will have old Jacob Javits
Toss a schmaltz red herring .
At the Radical Right
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain
Oh, the welfare state, where everything’s great,
‘Cause we got deep earth accountin’.
If your checks all bounce, we’ve got Chase accounts
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain.
As he stumbled on, I heard him mumble on
That he dassn’t dare to tarry.
That if we aren’t careful, we’d lose the anti-rabble
To a feller he called Barry.
He cried, unless we called recess
And he renewed his ardor,
He’d arrive at the mountain and see that the fountain
Was spoutin’ pure Goldwater.
Then Rock’s big candy mountain
Would be all plunged in gloom
With Lucius Clay and Tricky Dick
To toll the knell of doom.
Who stepped in but old Tom Dewey,
As silent as a tomb.
When all were caught and they were passin’
They were joined by Harold Stassen
And old Alf Landon in the anteroom.
Poor Rock’s big candy mountain.
Oh, unhappy fate of the welfare state
That was Rock’s big candy mountain,
Where the me-toos growed
And the “I do’s” flowed
Till they turned off that big fountain
Up on Rock’s big candy mountain.
—Noel Parmentel, 1963
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