My goodness, I haven't heard this song is years! My brother and I loved it and would groove around the kitchen singing it, back when we were kids helping my Mum to prepare dinner Used to sometimes annoy her a bit, especially when my brother would cut the bread all wrong but mostly we'd be laughing. Although the song is really so very sad with the content, the grooove would get my brother dancing so crazy!!
I thought I'd better add - please don't think we were insensitive to the message or taking it lightly. My Granddaddy was a miner and we knew all too well about things that happened to men like Big John. Amen and peace.
I’ve loved this song since I heard it as a kid in the 70’s. My parents had the record!❤ Tennessee Ernie Ford is also amazing! Mining here in the USA was done all over so lots of men and boys worked in the mines.
It's a morality tale. People were afraid of John because he was tall and strong and didn't talk much. They told stories that may or may not have been true about a past he chose not to talk about. They kept their distance. But when there was a disaster in the mine he - still quietly - used his great strength to save them and lost his own life in the process. The last line about what it written on the marble marker, "at the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man" is meant to have a double meaning. He was physically a big man, but also, it was once common to call someone of great character and virtue a "big man" (and alternatively someone who is petty and mean, a "small man"). They only realized his value too late.
There are at least two follow ups to this song. There's Itty Bitty Big John about his son, and the Cajun Queen... I think that one gives a pretty good hint with just the title. Both by Jimmy Dean.
It's such a sad story that we kids sang it," Big Dead John! " to make a little distance, I'm sure. Jimmy Dean's Show was the first regular network appearance of Jim Henson's Muppets. I was very young. The only other national performances were on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Basically, Big John got in a fight over a woman and killed a man with a single punch and had to lay low. Was probably ashamed he lost his temper and worried about the law looking for him.
My Dad was a coal miner in the forties thru sixties. I was a kid when this song came out and i always think of my Dad. His name was John Henry.
It's one reason I ONLY buy his sausage to this day... 60 years later.
Great song! I used to run around singing this one way back when!
My goodness, I haven't heard this song is years! My brother and I loved it and would groove around the kitchen singing it, back when we were kids helping my Mum to prepare dinner Used to sometimes annoy her a bit, especially when my brother would cut the bread all wrong but mostly we'd be laughing. Although the song is really so very sad with the content, the grooove would get my brother dancing so crazy!!
I thought I'd better add - please don't think we were insensitive to the message or taking it lightly. My Granddaddy was a miner and we knew all too well about things that happened to men like Big John. Amen and peace.
I’ve loved this song since I heard it as a kid in the 70’s. My parents had the record!❤
Tennessee Ernie Ford is also amazing!
Mining here in the USA was done all over so lots of men and boys worked in the mines.
It's a morality tale. People were afraid of John because he was tall and strong and didn't talk much. They told stories that may or may not have been true about a past he chose not to talk about. They kept their distance. But when there was a disaster in the mine he - still quietly - used his great strength to save them and lost his own life in the process. The last line about what it written on the marble marker, "at the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man" is meant to have a double meaning. He was physically a big man, but also, it was once common to call someone of great character and virtue a "big man" (and alternatively someone who is petty and mean, a "small man"). They only realized his value too late.
Would live to here Roy Clark's "Yesterday when I was young".🎵
Check out " Dark as a dungeon " sung by Johnny Cash.
Another excellent miner song.
Harry Belafonte did a great version of that song, and there's a rumble of thunder at the beginning from a storm outside of the studio.
There are at least two follow ups to this song.
There's Itty Bitty Big John about his son, and the Cajun Queen... I think that one gives a pretty good hint with just the title. Both by Jimmy Dean.
It's such a sad story that we kids sang it," Big Dead John! " to make a little distance, I'm sure. Jimmy Dean's Show was the first regular network appearance of Jim Henson's Muppets. I was very young. The only other national performances were on The Ed Sullivan Show.
I was young too I loved Ralph.
Basically, Big John got in a fight over a woman and killed a man with a single punch and had to lay low. Was probably ashamed he lost his temper and worried about the law looking for him.