I was driving along today, when a certain lyric in “Big Rock Candy Mountain” on “O Brother” caught my ear. After describing all of the good things on/in the Mountain, the singer says:
“Where they hung the Turk/And invented work/In the Big Rock Candy Mountain”
What does hanging a Turk have to do with the hobo’s idea of heaven? And why would you want to go to the place where they invented work?
Where they hung the JERK who invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain,
The jails are made of tin.
You can slip right out again,
As soon as they put you in.
There ain’t no short-handled shovels,
No axes, saws nor picks,
I’m bound to stay
Where you sleep all day,
Where they hung the jerk
That invented work
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
I’ve heard and seen it both ways. Turk and Jerk.
As for Turk, well:
The song title is cited from 1906 in the OED. Jerk is almost certainly the word involved.
The Big Rock Candy Mountain is supposed to be a hobo’s idea of Paradise: a place where you never have to work, where cigarettes grow on trees, where the cops can’t bother you, where you can help yourself to whatever you want.
So, given that, wouldn’t you agree that a hobo would regard the inventor of work as an idiot who deserved to be hanged?
What astorian said, but…
[minor pedantic hijack]
Hobos were migratory workers. They did not shun work, they were on the move looking for it. Big Rock Candy Mountain is a bum’s song of paradise, if only for that “where they hung the jerk/Turk who invented work” line.
[/minor pedantic hijack]
Though my dictionary doesn’t make the distinction, I remember reading somewhere that a tramp was a traveling worker, a hobo was a traveling non-worker, and a bum was a non-traveling non-worker.