Lyrics below. For what it’s worth, Springsteen and Lennon were from working class families of origin. Janis was a class defector of sorts from a middle class Texas family. Joplin and Lennon died young. Springsteen cashed in on his oft-sentimentalized proletarian origins and his remarkable voice, songwriting skills, and charisma to climb into the yacht-riding ruling class and Democratic Party establishment. Of the three tunes I tried to bring over here with a somewhat clangy keyboard (I think setting my phone on top of the University of Iowa Music Building piano is part of that), my favorite one is Lennon’s “Working Class Hero.” We do the working class no favors by romanticizing and sentimentalizing “it,” which is really a petty-bourgeois sort of thing to do and very common on “the Left.”
Janis Joplin:
“Here’s a song of great social and poitical import…”
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches
I must make amends
I worked hard all my lifetime
No help from my friends
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A Mercedes Benz?
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A color tv?
Dialing For Dollars
Is trying to find me
I wait for delivery
Each day until three
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A color tv?
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A night on the town?
I'm counting on you, Lord
Please don't let me down
Show me you love me
And buy the next round
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A night on the town?
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches
I must make amends
I worked hard all my lifetime
No help from my friends
Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A Mercedes Benz?
John Lennon: “Working Class Hero”
As soon as you're born, they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til 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
'Til 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
Bruce Springsteen, “The River”:
I come from down in the valley
Where, mister, when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
When she was just seventeen
We drive out of this valley
Down to where the fields were green
We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh, down to the river we'd ride
Then I got Mary pregnant
And man, that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday
I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
And the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle
No flowers, no wedding dress
That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh, down to the river we did ride
Yeah, yeah
I got a job working construction
For the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work
On account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care
But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet, down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
That sends me down to the river
Though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
My baby and I
Oh, down to the river we ride-ide
Some Working Class Music