It was sung by Charley Pride in the musical motion picture Tom Sawyer.
The song's placement as a "bookend" piece to the motion picture was largely due to the Sherman Brothers' deep involvement with the film, including screenwriters as well as songwriters.
The Shermans did not know how they would end their screenplay until reading Twain's own conclusion to the book.
The song is used to begin and end the movie, and is set against footage of the Mississippi River, showing Tom running toward the river, alongside it, swimming in it, etc.
Thus both the song and the footage reinforce the metaphor of the boy as a force of nature (i.e., like the river), and also takes inspiration from the opening paragraphs of Twain's semi-autobiographical novel Life on the Mississippi.