Origin of “pie in the sky”

I’m really interested in the origin of words and the use of language. A friend of mine who surfs the Net more than is normal (that’s Nick again) has discovered the origin of the phrase “pie in the sky”.
Perhaps appropriately for a Sunday blog posting by a former trade union official, the phrase turns out to come from a song written by a trade union organisation (the Industrial Workers of the World) in response to a religious movement (the Salvation Army).
Check it our here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007 at 7:36 am and is filed under Cultural issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Comments

  • Nick
    December 2nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm

    I saw this factoid mentioned in the latest issue of Free Inquiry (see An Activist’s Will), and then checked it out online.

  • Calvin Allen
    December 3rd, 2007 at 11:00 am

    Hi Roger,
    It also features in the song by the Jamaican singer Jimmy Cliff called ‘The Harder They Come’ (and the film too) – though I think the response here comes from the perspective of direct action and there’s certainly a derogatory reference to ‘officers’ 😉
    Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
    Waiting for me when I die
    But between the day you’re born and when you die
    They never seem to hear even your cry
    CHORUS:
    So as sure as the sun will shine
    I’m gonna get my share now of what’s mine
    And then the harder they come the harder they’ll fall, one and all
    Ooh the harder they come the harder they’ll fall, one and all
    Well the officers are trying to keep me down
    Trying to drive me underground
    And they think that they have got the battle won
    I say forgive them Lord, they know not what they’ve done
    CHORUS
    And I keep on fighting for the things I want
    Though I know that when you’re dead you can’t
    But I’d rather be a free man in my grave
    Than living as a puppet or a slave
    CHORUS
    Yeah, the harder they come, the harder they’ll fall one and all
    What I say now, what I say now,
    What I say now, what I say one time
    The harder they come the harder they’ll fall one and all
    Ooh the harder they come the harder they’ll fall one and all

  • alex
    December 4th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

    the chinese has an old saying, ‘pie from the sky’, means ’empty dreams’.
    it refers to some people expect gain without pain.