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Canned Heat - Going Up The Country

"Going Up the Country" became one of the band's biggest hits and best-known songs. As with their previous single, "On the Road Again", the song was adapted from a 1920s blues song and sung in a countertenor-style by Alan Wilson.

Canned Heat based "Going Up the Country" on "Bull Doze Blues", recorded in 1928 by Texas bluesman Henry Thomas. Thomas was from the songster tradition and had a unique sound, sometimes accompanying himself on quills, an early Afro-American wind instrument similar to panpipes. He recorded "Bull Doze Blues" in Chicago on June 13, 1928.

For "Going Up the Country", Canned Heat's Wilson used Thomas' melody on the quills and his basic rhythm, but arranged it for a rock setting and rewrote the lyrics. In addition to the bass and drum rhythm section, Henry Vestine supplied a "light electric rhythm guitar" and multi-instrumentalist Jim Horn reproduced Thomas' quill parts on the flute.

"Going Up The Country"

I'm going up the country, babe, don't you wanna go?
I'm going up the country, babe, don't you wanna go?
I'm going to some place where I've never been before.

I'm going, I'm going where the water tastes like wine.
Well, I'm going 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 fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can't stay.

Now baby, pack your leaving trunk, you know we've got to leave today,
Just exactly where we're going I cannot say, but
We might even leave the USA,
'Cause there's a brand new game that I want to play.

No use of you running, or screaming and crying,
'Cause you've got a home as long as I've got mine.