Another 'Why This Song?'

Woke in the middle of the night with the song Wolverton Mountain running through my mind. Now that's a tune I haven't thought of in years. What made my subconscious dredge up that old ballad? I couldn't even remember the lyrics beyond "They say don't go on Wolverton Mountain" and something about bears and wolves.



I finally went back to sleep, but remembered the night time music and looked up the lyrics and singer (something else I couldn't remember) this morning.

The first two stanzas are:

They say don't go on Wolverton Mountain
If you're looking for a wife
'Cause Clifton Clowers has a pretty young daughter
He's mighty handy with a gun and a knife

Her tender lips are sweeter than honey
And Wolverton Mountain protects her there
The bears and the birds tell Clifton Clowers
If a stranger should enter there
    (Ah, bears and birds, not wolves.)

The singer was Claude King. The song spent nine weeks at the top of Billboard's country chart in 1962 and crossed over to reach #6 on the pop chart and #3 on easy listening. I don't have any specific memories related to the tune, just that it was a song I really liked at the time.

Until looking for the lyrics and singer, I never knew there really was/is a Wolverton Mountain in Arkansas nor that Clifton Clowers was a real man who lived on the northern edge of it. He was born in 1891 and died at the age of 102 in 1994.

All this info was easy to find on the internet. What I'd really like to know is why the song was wandering around my mind at 3:00 a.m.?