Working Class Influence in Rock n Roll

While listening to a few 'oldies' recently, I found some interesting lyrics. There were bits of social commentary tucked away within love songs! I encourage you to click the links and listen before reading the lyrics and my analyses. Then listen a second time.

First up is Just Like Romeo and Juliet by The Reflections. It was released in 1964, the year that a very conservative Republican, Barry Goldwater, was nominated for President. The mood of the country was still somber after JFK's assassination. Not a time for lyrics to stir up class consciousness. Imagine my surprise when I read the words:

Findin' a job tomorrow mornin'
Got a little somethin' I wanna do
Gonna buy (gonna buy) somethin' I could ride in
A-Take my girl (take my girl) datin' at the drive-in
Our love's gonna be written down in history
A-Just like Romeo and Juliet

I'm gonna buy her pretty presents
Just like the ones in a catalog
Gonna show (gonna show) how much I love her
Let her know (let her know) one way or the other
Our love's gonna be written down in history
A-Just like Romeo and Juliet

(Ooh-ooh-oop)
(Dooo, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doo-doop)

Just Like Romeo and Juliet
Just Like Romeo and Juliet
Just Like Romeo and Juliet
Just Like Romeo and Juliet

Talk about love and romance
Just wait 'til I get myself straight
I'm gonna put Romeo's fame
Right smack-dab on a date

Ah, all right, now, I'm speculatin'
Wonder what tomorrow's gonna really bring
If I don't (if I don't) find work tomorrow
It's gonna be (gonna be) heartaches 'n' sorrow
Our love's gonna be destroyed like a tragedy
Just like Romeo and Juliet

(Ooh-ooh-oop)
(Dooo, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doo-doop)

Just like Romeo and Juliet
A-Just like Romeo and Juliet
A-Just like Romeo and Juliet
(Just like Romeo and Juliet)
(Just like Romeo and Juliet)
(Just like Romeo and Juliet)
(Just like Romeo and Juliet)


The opening lines to any song are of great importance. "Findin' a job tomorrow mornin'" The guy in this song is unemployed. "Gonna buy (gonna buy) somethin' I could ride in" He doesn't even have a car. "I'm gonna buy her pretty presents/Just like the ones in a catalog" Note that he is not in the class that would have seen these "pretty presents" while shopping in a fancy retail store. No. He's only seen them from afar - in a catalog. Finally, the very revealing lyrics, "If I don't (if I don't) find work tomorrow/It's gonna be (gonna be) heartaches 'n' sorrow/Our love's gonna be destroyed like a tragedy/Just like Romeo and Juliet" Up to that point, he dreams of a perfect romance, predicated upon finding a job and buying a car. Absent these materialistic things, his entire world will come crashing down, "(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet." These problems would not be as prevalent in an upper-income group, for whom being without a job and car simultaneously would be highly unlikely.



Next in line for a Bitter Analysis is Five O'Clock World by The Vogues. It was released in 1966. This was not an era conducive to getting songs with social commentary played on Top 40 AM radio. Unless those lyrics merged with a love story:

Up every mornin' just to keep a job
I gotta fight my way through the hustling mob
Sounds of the city poundin' in my brain
While another day goes down the drain

But it's a five o'clock world when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time
And there's a five o'clock me inside my clothes
Thinkin' that the world looks fine, yeah

Tradin' my time for the pay I get
Livin' on money that I ain't made yet
I've been goin' tryin' to make my way
While I live for the end of the day

Cuz it's a five oclock world when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time, and
There's a long-haired girl who waits, I know
To ease my troubled mind, yeah
oh my lady, yeah
oh my lady, yeah
In the shelter of her arms everything's OK
When she talks then the world goes slippin' away
And I know the reason I can still go on
When every other reason is gone,

In my five o'clock world she waits for me
Nothing else matters at all
Cuz every time my baby smiles at me
I know that it's all worthwhile,
yeah oh my lady,
yeah oh my lady, yeah, fade.....


The first four lines are extremely depressing. A normal person dealing with all that on a daily basis might become suicidal. The next four lines show that the real person has to be hidden away under his work mask until he leaves the job site. Once the shackles of the work-a-day world are thrown off, then and only then does " ... the world look fine." Indeed, the only reason he can put up with his job and the related world of work, a/k/a drudgery, is because of his lady love. A sad commentary on a society and culture that devalues a person and his job, and reduces him to a cog in the machine.



By 1970, radio had changed forever. Stations known as "underground FM" had sprouted up, whose mission was to reject the restrictive boundaries of the Top 40 AM outlets. Gone forever was the two to three minute record length 'rule'. Gone forever was the need to hide socially and politically charged lyrics. John Lennon wrote a dark song that is still controversial today. "Working Class Hero" appeared on his first album after leaving the Beatles in 1970, and must be included in any grouping of songs with a working class theme. No analysis, bitter or otherwise, is necessary:

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me


A hearty 'thank you' goes out to the songwriters who crafted their words to create powerful pictures and weave intricate tapestries. As with all pictures, their beauty and interpretation is in the eye of the beholder. I'm anxious to hear your decipherment of these songs, or any others you feel that fit into this category.