Children’s song and frontier myth were repurposed into images of murder and mourning

Evidence

The event began slowly with the nine (later six) members of the company strolling about or crawling through the audience and singing the “Songs of the First Encounter,” mainly “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” (a turn-of-the-twentieth-century hobo ditty that had been sanitized for Baby Boom children). The songs segued into individual reminiscences chanted by members of the group. A day at a western ranch featured a shoot-out that became a pieta. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1670