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 and #5 in Canada in 1969.

Alan Wilson moved to Los Angeles and met Bob “The Bear” Hite and in 1965 started Canned Heat. The group took their name from “Canned Heat Blues,” an obscure 1928 track by bluesman Tommy Johnson that described the drug high achieved through drinking the household product Sterno.

In 1967, after appearing at the Monterey Pop Festival, Canned Heat signed with Liberty Records. They made a self-titled album that year and it peaked at #76 on the Billboard Charts. In 1968 they released “Boogie with Canned Heat” which made it to number 16. They followed that album with “Living the Blues”(#18) and in 1969 released the album Hallelujah(#37).

Their appearance at Woodstock raised their stock higher. They had two hit singles both sung by Alan Wilson, this song released in 1968, and  On The Road Again released in 1969. Alan wasn’t the regular lead singer of Canned Heat but he did sing the two best-known singles by them. They were both written by him and based on old blues songs. His unusual voice came from him trying to mimic the voice of old blues singers. Bob Hite was the lead singer of the band.

Alan Wilson is a forgotten figure who was a gifted musician. He died in 1970 under strange circumstances outdoors in a sleeping bag near his band’s lead singer’s (Bob Hite) house. He was dead at the age of 27. Jimi Hendrix would die in a couple of weeks and Janis Joplin would follow a month later…all of them were age 27.

Going Up Country was heavily influenced by 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.

Going Up Country

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

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

43 thoughts on “Canned Heat – Going Up Country”

  3. When I was in elementary school I wanted to play the flute. My dad bought me a trumpet because flute was “a girl’s instrument”. I’ve always loved the flute on this song. Maybe that’s why I bought myself a flute soon after.

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  4. A true classic that make me want to look for my vinyl copy of the Woodstock album. I’ve thought more than once whether I would have liked to be there. While 20 years ago, I would have said, ‘hell, yes’, I feel Woodstock oftentimes gets romanticized and people generously forget about the dismal conditions there. So nowadays, I’m no longer sad I wasn’t there. I rather watch the movie or listen to the album!

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    1. Well I would have to go…just to see The Who, Janis, and Jimi Hendrix. Remember Christian…we wouldn’t have been our age…we would have been in our 20s…that would have changed the game!

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      2. When you are that age…you probably wouldn’t think of it as much BUT…yea it had to be a bummer for many without the right drugs lol. I’ll give you that.

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      4. That is a great thing! I wasn’t bad either although not totally innocent…I didn’t even smoke pot because I can’t stand smoke. I tried when I turned 40 (going to a Stones concert)…but again I couldn’t handle the smoke and I had to stop.

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  6. You’re bang on with the association of Canned Heat to outdoor festivals. I’,m the same whenever I play them – I can never really think of them in an indoor arena..
    Mind their ‘best’ work was saved for this:

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    1. LOL…how the hell did they get involved with that????
      I thought you were going to say the album Hooker ‘n Heat…I never ever expect that! I’ll have to post this for Christmas! lol. I just read in their bio the author said it was “an incongruous move”…..

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  7. a member of the 27 club I hadn’t heard of. Remarkable (in a bad way) coincidence, so mnay of them in such a short period of time. I knew the song vaguely before, but for better or worse, now I associate it with a motorbike insurance commercial – Geico, I think? Anyway, it probably introduced a lot of people to it.

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    1. He is forgotten and it’s a damn shame. A great guitar player and who doesn’t know that voice?
      I wouldn’t doubt the commercial. I had the Woodstock album when I was around 11 or so…so I connect it with that. It’s one of those songs that screams hippy.

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  8. I always wondered how the song got released as the vocals sound wrong- but in a way that somehow perversely worked and gave it a point of difference. It is one toon that is love beads and tie dye through and through.
    (And I have loathed cigarettes since I was raised in a two smoking parents household. I’d walk a mile away from a Camel and/or Kool.)

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    1. Those vocals are different… it has a little Kermit in there or…the other way around.

      Yea I never could smoke…I remember the car trips when my parent were together… you couldn’t hardly see in the front seat because of the smoke. That was probably why I never liked them.

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      1. Bob Hite turned me onto a lot of music. He was the Max of his day. From what I gather he had a record collection (rare blues I think) second to none. I learned more about him back when I was into the Blasters. Phil Alvin talked about him a lot. Heat and Hooker is a good one. They get in a good groove. This cut was probably turned into a jam somewhere along the line.

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      2. I read where he had a huge blues record collection. I liked his voice…like on Lets Work Together. That Hooker N Heat album is about as raw and real as you get…

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  13. Sorry pal I have fallen way behind with everyone’s blogs as we went to Sudbury to see the grand baby for the last 5 days….I need to start catching up soon….I’m still here man! lol

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    1. Dude no need to apologize….geez sometimes I don’t know you post until 3 days later!
      Christian and I was looking for you yesterday on his site…your opinion of Uriah Heep

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