Labour & Pop Culture: Jack of all trades

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Jack of All Trades” by Bruce Springsteen. This is a typical working-class ballad from Springsteen, wherein the characters are a struggling and the economic struggle becomes a metaphor for the romantic one.

There is a pretty clear class analysis in the song:

The banker man grows fat, working man grows thin
It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again
It’ll happen again, yeah they’ll bet your life
I’m a jack of all trades, darling we’ll be all right

The most interesting part of the song is this lyric:

So you use what you’ve got and you learn to make do
You take the old, you make it new
If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight

(Note the cheer from the audience at the end of this line).

One of things we don’t talk much about in labour relations is the nasty business that, when class oppression becomes to great, there is sometimes a spontaneous uprising involving guns, ropes, and lampposts. Not every time, but often enough to give the powerful pause when they think about turning the screws.



I’ll mow your lawn, clean the leaves out’ your drain
I’ll mend your roof, to keep out the rain
I take the work that God provides
I’m a jack of all trades, honey we’ll be all right

I’ll hammer the nails, I’ll set the stone
I’ll harvest your crops, when they’re ripe and grown
I’ll pull that engine apart, and patch’er up ’til she’s running right
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

The hurricane blows, brings the hard rain
When the blue sky breaks
It feels like the world’s gonna change
And we’ll start caring for each other
Like Jesus said that we might
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

The banker man grows fat, working man grows thin
It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again
It’ll happen again, yeah they’ll bet your life
I’m a jack of all trades, darling we’ll be all right

Now sometimes tomorrow comes soaked in treasure and blood
We stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood
There’s a new world coming, I can see the light
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

So you use what you’ve got and you learn to make do
You take the old, you make it new
If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right

-- Bob Barnetson