# Songs about poverty
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 25, 2006, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126 "2006-05-25T02:54:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/1 "2006-05-25T02:54:55Z")
So I’m singing in the shower, as is my wont, and I’m singing “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
Then I start singing “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”
And then I realize I’m onto something good here and follow up with “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” ("'cuz that’s the only thing I’ve plenty of, baby")
And now I’m stumped, because I still have about 5 minutes left to my shower (my hair’s really long) and I can’t think of any more songs that are about being poor. So I sing “Motherless Child” and (don’t laugh) Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” (because it’s about being alone and unwanted, which is close enough to poverty in the shower).
What other (not too obscure, shower-singable) songs about being poor do you know?
Bonus points awarded to any old classics. Surely Billie Holiday has some?
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### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/2 "2006-05-25T02:57:54Z")
Ooh, I just thought of “God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own,” but I don’t know all the words.
And why are the ads below about cats??
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### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/3 "2006-05-25T03:00:38Z")
Aw, man, I’m sorry for the triple post but could a patient mod please move this to Cafe Society, where I thought I had posted it? Grazie mille.
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### Author:  [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/4 "2006-05-25T03:07:39Z")
While you get shifted over to CS:
The Kingston Trio had a great one…
Just a little snippet:
"Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
“One more nickel.”
Charlie could not get off that train.
Chorus:
Did he ever return,
No he never returned
And his fate is still unlearn’d
He may ride forever
'neath the streets of Boston
He’s the man who never returned."
I won’t link the whole lyric here (for obvious reasons), but the song is hilarious. If one were to search for Kingston Trio Charlie Train, they might see the whole song.
Poor Charlie.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/5 "2006-05-25T03:08:31Z")
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
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### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/6 "2006-05-25T03:09:09Z")
“In The Ghetto” by Elvis.
Great song, especially when Cartman sings it.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/7 "2006-05-25T03:09:34Z")
_In the Ghetto_
_Lovechild_
_The Theme to Good Times (Keepin’ Your Head Above Water)_
_Hit the Road Jack_
_Check’s in the Mail_ (Leon Redbone song- not sure that’s the title)
_No Money Blues_
_{But We’ll Travel Along, Singin’ a Song} Side by Side_
-
showtunes:
_At the End of the Day_ (Les Mis)
_We Need a Little Christmas_ (Mame)
_We’d Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover_ (Annie)
_The Night that Goldman Spoke at Union Square_, _Your Daddy’s Eyes_ and _Here in America (Silhouettes)_, all from Ragtime
_If I Were a Rich Man_ (Fiddler on the Roof)
_Consider Yourself at Home_ and _You Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two_ (Oliver)
_Those Canaan Days_ (Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat)
_Memory_ (sort of) (Cats)
_Money_ and others (Cabaret [perhaps the most brutal of the showtunes, especially as it was enacted in the revival {major S&M}])
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/8 "2006-05-25T03:43:28Z")
**stockton** , I believe the song title is **M. T. A.** (For those familiar with the song: what always used to bug me about it was, if Charlie’s wife could hand him a sandwich, why couldn’t she hand him a nickel?)
The Kinks’ “Dead End Street” (and, possibly, their brilliant “She’s Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina’s”)
Stevie Wonder’s “Village Ghetto Land”
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/9 "2006-05-25T03:44:54Z")
The Down & Out song from _Bugsy Malone_
Paul Young _Love Of The Common People_
[Underneath The Arches](http://ingeb.org/songs/undernea.html)
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/10 "2006-05-25T03:48:05Z")
“Busted” By Ray Charles and others
“Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young
“Seeds” by Bruce Springsteen
“Living for the City” by Stevie Wonder
“Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” by Marvin Gaye
“Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/11 "2006-05-25T03:49:37Z")
_Patches_
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/12 "2006-05-25T03:51:57Z")
**Patches** , from the 60’s. Girl from the wrong side of the tracks, rich boy’s family won’t let them be together.
**Sampiro** mentioned Side by Side, which some friends and I sang in a 4th grade talent show, in hobo outfits. We thought we were pretty good, but another bunch of little girls wearing baby doll pj’s stole the show singing a stupid song about a teddy bear with no hair.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/13 "2006-05-25T04:46:11Z")
Everclear’s [I Will Buy You a New Life](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/everclear/i+will+buy+you+a+new+life_20052001.html) (featuring my favorite poverty related lyrics: _I hate those people who love to tell you/Money is the root of all that kills/
They have never been poor/
They have never had the joy of a welfare christmas_)
Not poverty exactly, but working poor:
[Five o’clock World](http://www.tabalorium.com/tabs/12180.html) (“Trading my time for the pay I get/living on money that I ain’t made yet”)
Cat Stevens’ [Matthew & Son](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/cat+stevens/matthew+son_20028138.html), a catchy song about a joyless low paying workplace.
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### Author:  [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/14 "2006-05-25T05:17:35Z")
Alienation’s For the Rich (And I’m Gettin’ Poorer Every Day) - They Might be Giants
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### Author:  [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/15 "2006-05-25T05:34:37Z")
How about the blues? Many blues songs have some reference to being poor (for example, one of my favorites: B.B. King’s _Bad Luck_). After all, they are the blues.
I also quite enjoy _You Know You Ghetto_ by Sticky Fingaz and Petey Pablo.
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### Author:  [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/16 "2006-05-25T05:36:18Z")
How about “Fourth of July” by X (written by Dave Alvin).
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/17 "2006-05-25T05:40:39Z")
“Common People”, by Pulp:
_Rent a flat above a shop
Cut your hair and get a job
Smoke some fags and play some pool
Pretend you never went to school
Still you’ll never get it right
'Cause when you’re laying in bed at night
Watching roaches climb the wall
If you called your dad you could stop it all, yeah
You’ll never live like the common people
Never do whatever common people do
Never fail like common people
You’ll never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there’s nothing else to do_
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### Author:  [@Talon\_Karrde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Talon_Karrde)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/18 "2006-05-25T05:50:28Z")
Maybe it’s more the music video than the song, but I’ll mention REM’s “Talk About the Passion”. It shows a lot of homeless people (“not everyone can carry the weight of the world”) intercut with shots of military ships. Then at the end it mentions how much money the military spent, or something. I don’t remember exactly.
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### Author:  [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/19 "2006-05-25T05:53:04Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> “Common People”, by Pulp:
>
> _Rent a flat above a shop
> Cut your hair and get a job
> Smoke some fags and play some pool
> Pretend you never went to school
> Still you’ll never get it right
> 'Cause when you’re laying in bed at night
> Watching roaches climb the wall
> If you called your dad you could stop it all, yeah
> You’ll never live like the common people
> Never do whatever common people do
> Never fail like common people
> You’ll never watch your life slide out of view
> And then dance and drink and screw
> Because there’s nothing else to do_
I hear William Shatner reciting this, now.
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### Author:  [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-about-poverty/358126/20 "2006-05-25T06:07:31Z")
King of the Road by Roger Miller
Little Red Shoes by Loretta Lynn
Applejack by Dolly Parton
Rocky Top by various
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