# Songs by rich singers that imply that they're poor **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 17, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711 "2009-01-17T05:07:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/41 "2009-01-18T01:36:35Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Does that kind of story apply to any real life rappers? [Robbie Van Winkle?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_Ice) Sorry, you said _real_ rappers. ---
**Author:** ![Fat\_Chance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8baadc/32.png) [@Fat\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fat_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/42 "2009-01-18T02:32:23Z")
um, I think many of the “poor” guy songs are written before they made it big, or written with the memory of those days. Many big rich rock stars spent years poor and struggling before they made it big, and probably find those days inspirational to thier writing. Then, “Jenny from the block” just pisses me the fuck off… ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/43 "2009-01-18T03:22:51Z")
Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got, I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block. No, JLo, you aren’t. You aren’t at all. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/44 "2009-01-18T03:31:28Z")
Not that Warrant was ever completely loaded, but they were already hitting it big when they released “32 Pennies.” _32 pennies in a Ragu jar That’s all I’ve got to my name But I love her and she loves me To the pennies it’s all the same_ ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/45 "2009-01-18T10:20:37Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Tom Hanks was neither an astronaut, a gay lawyer, nor a developmentally disabled man who met nearly every famous person over a 20-year span. Well, he was neither an astronaut nor a gay lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/46 "2009-01-18T10:41:18Z")
Just as an actor, a singer is often role-playing when singing a song. He’s using a _persona_, it doesn’t necessarily represent himself. Otherwise singers would be restricted to singing and composing songs only about their own lives, which, let’s face it, would be rather boring. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/47 "2009-01-18T21:31:07Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can.” > > Imagine sucking my pustular stump, ya Scouse git. This cracked me up. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/48 "2009-01-18T21:49:47Z")
> [@Scissorjack](#): > > “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can.” > > Imagine sucking my pustular stump, ya Scouse git. Well put. > [@](#): > > When May Pang, John’s mistress and PA, began to inhibit his incessant womanising, he moaned: “I don’t know how to get rid of her 'cause she’s my phone book.” It would be difficult to pack more unpleasant qualities into one remark or imagine an attitude more at odds with the sentiments of “Imagine”, but few public figures betrayed the ideals of the 60s more flagrantly than John and Yoko while pretending to uphold them. By the late 70s, a heroin-addicted Ono was working nine to five at a gold-inlaid desk to increase the working class hero’s fortune. Renoirs, Egyptian tomb treasures, prize dairy cows and refrigerated storerooms full of fur coats were just a few of the empire’s spoils. One day, when an old friend from Liverpool commented “Imagine no possessions, John”, Lennon retorted: “It’s only a bloody song.” > **[Review: John Lennon by Philip Norman](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/oct/11/john-lennon-philip-norman)** > > Review: John Lennon by Philip NormanMichel Faber weighs up the most ambitious biography yet of a man who created an era What, BTW, might a “prize dairy cow” be? N.B. that unless I am mis-remembering, the “refrigerated storeroom” for the fur coats was actually more like an entire separate apartment in the Dakota. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/49 "2009-01-19T01:38:57Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > What, BTW, might a “prize dairy cow” be? N.B. that unless I am mis-remembering, the “refrigerated storeroom” for the fur coats was actually more like an entire separate apartment in the Dakota. I know nothing about the material possessions of John Lennon, so this is just a guess, but apparently he owned high quality dairy cattle. I Googled ‘“John Lennon” dairy cow’ and one of the results said it was Holsteins; another said Guernseys. Holsteins produce a lot more milk, but with less fat, than Guernseys. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/50 "2009-01-19T01:58:14Z")
Well Elvis grew up very poor, as did Johnny Cash, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/51 "2009-01-19T02:08:52Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > A few weeks ago, Law and Order: SVU featured the murder of a “ghetto” rapper who rapped about his drug dealing & pimping past. When Ice-T called him on it, he sheepishly admitted he grew up in a gated community in Connecticut. > > Does that kind of story apply to any real life rappers? I don’t know if it’s really equivalent to a gated community, but Kanye West’s mom was a college English professor and he grew up in the Chicago suburbs. Not exactly hard core South Side. ETA: Also, Kanye isn’t a gangsta rapper. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/52 "2009-01-19T06:32:30Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I don’t know if it’s really equivalent to a gated community, but Kanye West’s mom was a college English professor and he grew up in the Chicago suburbs. Not exactly hard core South Side. > > ETA: Also, Kanye isn’t a gangsta rapper. I was actually going to use Kanye as an example of how it’s now acceptable to be a middle class kid from the suburbs and rap. I think you can also classify Pharrell Williams in this grouping as well. And as **Kyla** notes, these dudes aren’t gangsta. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711/53 "2009-01-19T10:37:35Z")
Dolly Parton is a nice example of the reverse. She sings about her poor childhood, and then about how fortunate she is now. (White Limozeen is one of my favorite of her songs, about the realization of big dreams and the material benefits that come along.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-by-rich-singers-that-imply-that-theyre-poor/481711.md?page=2)