In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, as the song goes, it's a hobo's paradise:
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
There's a land that's fair and bright,
Where the handouts grow on bushes
And you sleep out every night.
Where the boxcars all are empty
And the sun shines every day
And the birds and the bees
And the cigarette trees
The lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers' trees are full of fruit
...
The brakemen have to tip their hats
And the railway bulls are blind
There's a lake of stew
And of whiskey too
You can paddle all around it
In a big canoe
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,
The jails are made of tin.
And you can walk right out again,
As soon as you are in.
...
Every time this song comes up in my iTunes shuffle, I'm a little bemused by the limited nature of the hobo's paradise. The jails can't hold you, but still someone is sending you to jail? The cops and bulldogs are incapacitated by their wooden legs and rubber teeth, but still they exist, and are after you? If you're letting your fancy take flight, if you're re-imagining the world the way you'd like it to be, can't you do a better job than that?
For starters, I'd leave out the cigarette trees.
But tonight I was listening to it and thinking, maybe what this means is that the things most to be wished for are things that you can't even begin to imagine. Maybe the things that distress you the most deeply are things you really don't even need to worry about. Maybe you (and when I say "you" at this point I am talking to myself, which is a little weird and embarrassing but what the hell) just need to chill out and everything will be okay. And this is kind of a nice thought.
Maybe not nice enough to lull me to sleep, which is a bit of a pity as it's almost midnight and I have to be up at 6:30, and I'm not tired enough to sleep, only to blather somewhat senselessly.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, my day at my somewhat boring, pointless state job wouldn't begin until 9:30am.
posted by Beth @ 11:32 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
"the things most to be wished for are things that you can't even begin to imagine"
I couldn't agree more.
I think this song is a perfect example of the limited capacity in which humans think. It's easy for us to wonder why someone would wish for the world to be full of cops with wooden legs so law breakers can easily out run them rather a world where there is no need for laws, much less people to enforce anything. But for a hobo who may know no other possibilities, this is the best he can do.
We wish for many things in this world: perfect marriages, wealth, success, big houses, life after death, a perfect body, popularity, whatever. We create everything from religion to diet pills in an attempt to acquire these things. But maybe these things are pointless and even silly to wish for because the bigger picture is too big for us to even imagine. Maybe the things we fantasize about are just our own rubber-toothed bulldogs.
Regarding rubber-toothed bulldogs, remind me to tell you an (I think) amusing story about something a chick I went to high school with once said... (sort of off topic but this reminds me of the incident.)
I guess it's hard to have a sense of perspective when you can't really see anything. But you're right, it is comforting (if also sometimes terrifying) to think that little, transient things eventually won't matter so much.
I would kind of like to be fabulously wealthy. Oh well.
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