Labour & Pop Culture: Talkin bout a Revolution

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Talkin bout a Revolution" by Tracy Chapman. Chapman wrote this song in response to her experiences of the wealthy disregarding the lives and struggles of the poor and blue-collar people.

The song pretty clearly identifies the American proletariat of the day:

While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

It then suggests that the hopelessness of their situation will result in social instability:

Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

An interesting question is, to what degree, have we seen this talk of a revolution play out snce the song was released in 1988? We might consider the growing divide between rich and poor (often along racial lines) and the creation of an underground economy as one response. It isn’t a revolution in the 1960s, CIA sense of the term. But it is a rejection of (or a work-around to) mainstream American society.

A different angle is to look at the broad support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election—often by poor people who are now being harmed by his policies. Was this support about looking for an outsider who (at least superficially) addressed the needs of poor and dispossessed (white) people?



Don't you know
They're talkin' 'bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

Don't you know
They're talkin' 'bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Poor people gonna rise up
And get their share
Poor people gonna rise up
And take what's theirs

Don't you know
You better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run
Oh I said you better
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run

'Cause finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution
Yes, finally the tables are starting to turn
Talkin' bout a revolution, oh no
Talkin' bout a revolution, oh
While they're standing in the welfare lines
Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation
Wasting time in the unemployment lines
Sitting around waiting for a promotion

-- Bob Barnetson