I'm Happy When I'm Hiking, one of the best hiking songs for kids and good hiking music for grown ups alike, and among most famous scout songs, now available as audio in mp3 on Amazon and Itunes and on CD.
I'm Happy When I'm Hiking
Music and Lyrics by Ralph Buttler and Raymond Wallace.
Ian Whitcomb writes "(...) Fifteen years earlier, when America joined the war in Europe, the Alleymen had buckled down to patriotic duty providing go-get-’em marching songs like “We Don’t Want The Bacon — What We Want Is A Piece Of The Rhine”, treating a distant conflict like an out-of-town vaudeville show. But now, in the eerie quietness of these early hard times for urbanites, the message was milder. The suggestion was “Let’s Have Another Cup Of Coffee” or “Let’s Put Out The Lights and Go To Sleep,” rather than a goose-step to an apocalyptic rendezvous with destiny, as they would be doing in Germany. "(...)
"(...) Actually, in nearby England the native songwriters were recommending a brisk walk — “I’m Happy When I’m Hiking” — in long shorts (or short longs) as an antidote to an unfortunate turn of events in the stock market, not to be confused with the ongoing rotten state of things ever since the Great War had shaken the Empire and let upstart Americans strut about, flooding the isles with their jizzy-jazz and slang. In London’s own Tin Pan Alley my songwriting uncle and his colleagues were censuring the limited range of Yank song subjects as “indoor poodle-faking” involving the “lugubrious lamentations of a disappointed lover.”
© Ian Whitcomb
I'm Happy When I'm Hiking - Music Video
Music and Lyrics by Ralph Buttler and Raymond Wallace
Arrangement by Patricio da Silva
Patrício da Silva, composer/arranger
Ian Whitcomb, vocal, ukulele, musette accordion
Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor
What’s Next? Ensemble:
Sakura Tsai, violin
Edgar Sandoval, violin
John Stulz, viola
Stella Cho, cello
Harish Kumar, bass
Tara Schwab, flute
Carmen Izzo, clarinet
Caster Teoh, trumpet
Michael Kudirka, guitar
Katherine Norring, piano
Brian Foreman, drums/percussion
I'm Happy When I'm Hiking
Music and Lyrics by Ralph Buttler and Raymond Wallace.
Arrangement by Patricio da Silva.
Ian Whitcomb writes "(...) Fifteen years earlier, when America joined the war in Europe, the Alleymen had buckled down to patriotic duty providing go-get-’em marching songs like “We Don’t Want The Bacon — What We Want Is A Piece Of The Rhine”, treating a distant conflict like an out-of-town vaudeville show. But now, in the eerie quietness of these early hard times for urbanites, the message was milder. The suggestion was “Let’s Have Another Cup Of Coffee” or “Let’s Put Out The Lights and Go To Sleep,” rather than a goose-step to an apocalyptic rendezvous with destiny, as they would be doing in Germany. "(...)
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| I'm Happy When I'm Hiking from the album Now & Then: Music From the Great Depression(s) 2010 / 1929, featuring Ian Whitcomb and the What's Next? Ensemble in arrangements by Patricio da Silva |
© Ian Whitcomb
I'm Happy When I'm Hiking - Music Video
Music and Lyrics by Ralph Buttler and Raymond Wallace
Arrangement by Patricio da Silva
Patrício da Silva, composer/arranger
Ian Whitcomb, vocal, ukulele, musette accordion
Vimbayi Kaziboni, conductor
What’s Next? Ensemble:
Sakura Tsai, violin
Edgar Sandoval, violin
John Stulz, viola
Stella Cho, cello
Harish Kumar, bass
Tara Schwab, flute
Carmen Izzo, clarinet
Caster Teoh, trumpet
Michael Kudirka, guitar
Katherine Norring, piano
Brian Foreman, drums/percussion
