Canned Heat – Going Up Country

I wasn’t there but this song equals Woodstock to me. Every time I hear this song I think of a field full of hippies with bubbles. Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson wrote this song based on an old blues song called Bull Doze Blues. It peaked at #11 in the Billboard 100 in 1969.

From Songfacts.

Canned Heat’s band members were notoriously avid record collectors; this was derived from an old and obscure Blues song called “Bull Doze Blues” by Henry Thomas. The song caught on in the summer of 1969 and was very popular among Hippies who appreciated the nature theme.
This was written by Alan Wilson, who was Canned Heat’s vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter. Wilson committed suicide on September 3, 1970, becoming one of the first 27-year-old rock casualties, a group that would soon include Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.

 

I’m goin’ up the country, baby don’t you want to go?
I’m goin’ up the country, baby don’t you want to go?
I’m goin’ to some place, I’ve never been before
I’m goin’ I’m goin’ where the water tastes like wine
I’m goin’ where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away
I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away
All this fussin’ and fightin’ man, you know I sure can’t stay
So baby pack your leavin’ trunk
You know we’ve got to leave today
Just exactly where we’re goin’ I cannot say
But we might even leave the U.S.A.
It’s a brand new game, that I want to play
No use in your runnin’, or screamin’ and cryin’
‘Cause you got a home as long as I’ve got mine

Author: badfinger20 (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

37 thoughts on “Canned Heat – Going Up Country”

  1. I can’t sing well at all but once in a while I will break into my Blind Owl Wilson imitation of Going Up The Country- which is half decent as far as sounding like him. I can’t do Little Richard though…

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    1. Hey that is good enough! A little Kermit in there and you will have it…
      I started a blog about him but havent finished. He was a great musician.

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      4. it’s almost like winning with a gimmick….The funny thing is their starting pitching has done well….
        He was great yesterday

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      7. I don’t know if you’ve got a chance to see any of the AL but Bregman is remarkable at third base-reminds me of Brooks Robinson- Nettles with the glove….and for the Sox Andrew Benitendi is looking like a future superstar…

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      8. No I only saw parts of it but not by choice. I did see that catch this morning by Benitendi…just incredible especially under the circumstances.

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      9. He just looks like a great all around player- glove, bat- I can’t get over all the young- home grown talent the Red Sox- Yankees- Astros and Dodgers all have- all those teams are going to be trouble for the rest of the league for a long time.

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      10. I know now is the best time to be a Dodger fan since the seventies era of the home grown Cey, Lopes, Garvey etc… All of those teams are stacked…

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      11. I saw someone the other day on FB comparing Bellinger to Ted Williams.. Bellinger is a fine young ballplayer but I thought that comparison was a bit of a stretch. I can’t get over the bench the Dodgers have. It seems endless.

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      12. Bellinger looks like him a little and the comparison should stop there. When he hits 400 then they can talk.
        Friedman believes in depth and that is what his goal was… you don’t have to have one superstar…you have a lot of good players. Of course they got Manny because Seager is hurt. I doubt if they resign him.

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      13. I see no reason to keep Manny for the money he will want- better to spend some of that money elsewhere- like nailing down those young stars for the future. I look at the Astros and wonder how they are going to be able to keep all of those guys. Same with Dodgers. I like having veteran types on the bench- a guy like Freese is a perfect guy to have around.

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      14. Freese has been a great addition. Turner was talking about him teaching the young guys. They might resign Freese now that Utley has retired.

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      16. That is a good point. I really hope they resign him… I knew Alex Cora would be one when he played for the Dodgers.
        Freese is one of the most important pickups they did…It didn’t get my attention at the time…I thought another 3rd baseman? I’m happy now.

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      17. I hated to see the Pirates trade him but I can see why they did. He would certainly be more valuable elsewhere and being in the last year of his contract- get something in return.

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      18. Yes it made total sense for The Pirates. I looked at his numbers a little after the trade…his numbers were really good this year.

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      19. He is one of those guys who will accept his role-and never be a problem. He was an excellent signing for the Pirates a few years back- I think they got more out of him than they expected.

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      20. If there is such a thing as being clutch…while I think there is… he is clutch. Uribe…the old third baseman for the Giants and Dodgers was like that…you want them up in those tight spots..more than the stars of the teams.

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      21. Maybe with stars there is so much pressure to deliver in the key spots- it gets to some of them.. the fringe kind of players if they make an out no one is going to probably remember. Some guys just seem to thrive on the pressure.

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      23. yikes! all I’ve heard from my end is Bellinger is talented, no doubt, but nothing TOO special and rather lazy right now. Reminds me of young Brett Lawrie when he came up with toronto about 2011…first month in bigs, a Jays TV broadcaster said he’d played with Brett and Molitor and Lawrie was better! Was one of the stupidest things I’d ever heard in baseball…and of course, he couldn’t live up to that hype.About 6 years on– think he quit the game already

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      25. There are so many ‘great can’t miss prospects that for whatever reason miss and miss big. I don’t think the big build up ever helps anyone… yes that sounds pretty silly comparing Lawrie to a Brett or Molitor..

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      26. Some of them get build up so much…I’ve seen now though that the experts are getting a better read on prospects… or maybe it’s just me

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      27. I think you are right- today they know so much more on these guys.. of course there are the ones that will always be hard to figure- high school pitchers- and maybe pitchers in general.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. He is very interesting…I have an unfinished blog on him that I was trying for today but that didn’t work…hoping for tomorrow.
      He has been forgotten…He died then Jimi Hendrix and then Janis within a month or so

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  3. Pingback: Canned Heat – Let’s Work Together – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

  4. Reading your comments I thought I’d landed in your other blog by mistake! 😉
    This song takes me back to a free open-air gig in Hyde Park, London that Canned Heat played at. It was a very windy day and I had to keep running in a zig-zag way to catch the music on the wind! I felt like a demented rabbit!

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    1. LOL… yes Hans and I are big baseball fans and we will start talking about it at the drop of the hat.

      Oh I would have loved to see this band live. It’s sad what happened to Alan Wilson…and they were on their way up at the time.

      Liked by 1 person

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