So recently I've been getting really into Assassins. I haven't had a chance to see the show yet (this might make my following question obsolete) but I've been listening to the music a ton and really enjoying it.
One thing has been bothering me. This might be a stupid question, or a nit-pick-y question. In Another National Anthem, there's the line, "There's another national anthem, folks, for those who never win, / for the suckers, for the pikers, for the ones who might have been."
I find the word "pikers" here very strange! It is a word I had personally never heard before (I'm from the northeast US); looking it up has revealed so many different definitions (a cheapskate, a chicken, a gambler) but none feel "right" in the song. I think it's said by Czolgosz but none of my research has made it sound like a particularly Polish piece of slang. It's not rhyming with anything so it's not like Sondheim had extremely limited options.
Anyway. I believe that the word is there for something, since it's such a climactic moment in the show (and the show is among his best lyrically imo), but I just don't really understand it or what it's doing here lyrically/poetically. Any insight?