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There’s a song by John Hartford called "Corn Cob Blues", from a 1967 album.

The song’s about a cowboy singer promoting the wedding of a member of his backing crew, and the thoughts of the groom during the run-up to the ceremony. Presumably the wedding is to be a public ticketed occasion, a bit like one of Hank Williams’ 2nd wedding ceremonies, which was held in the New Orleans Civic Auditorium.

It’s an odd story, and makes for a good quirky song, but does anyone know if there’s a real story behind it? It also mentions "Hurricane Apple", which I think was never a real hurricane.

Angst
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The primary source, John Hartford, belies any notion of the song being based upon true events:

'Corn Cob Blues' is about a skinny boy with elopment on his mind who gets involved in a highly commercial wedding venture complete with song and dance routine, stale jokes, and a lot of loud promotion.

There is no record of a storm with the appellation "Hurricane Apple", either within the .list of current names or within the list of retired hurricane names.

The lyric in question is as follows:

Well the rain came down and the crowd was slow/ And the cowboy hollered and stubbed his toe/ The signs on track to see from here to town/ Hurricane Apple couldn't knock them down.

At first glance, "Apple" feels as though the songwriter wanted a name comprising of two syllables with soft consonants to maintain the scan and rhythm.

It is also possible that the name is a call back to the hurricane which struck New England in 1938.

BarneyRubble
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It is Hurricane Ethel, not Apple...it was a hurricane that came over the Gulf of Mexico in 1960, so it makes sense that John Hartford would make a reference to a powerful event from his time.

ACM
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