The Hiking Song

Album: All Good Stuff, Lady! (1938)
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Songfacts®:

  • There have been quite a few hiking songs, but probably none as risqué as this. In many ways it's a typical Miller ditty, and although half a century and more on it seems quite tame, it was about as far as a performer could go in the British theatre at the time without being banned. The first verse has two teens going out hiking, and when they return they are wearing each others' shorts.
  • A spokesman for the Max Miller Appreciation Society told Songfacts that Miller wrote the song himself and recorded it on three different occasions, each time with other material:

    Live at the Holborn Empire on October 7, 1938.

    Live with the Forces on November 1, 1940.

    Live at the Black Lion, Brighton (Miller's home town) on June 1, 1961.

    The first two were released on the HMV label, the third on Pye. The song was published in The Max Miller Blue Book, which was compiled by Barry Took in 1975. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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