Poverty and hopelessness.

please.

WE BELIEEEVE.goodfuckingcharlotte

"when i get low, i get high" Ella Fitzgerald (Pete Doherty also did a cover, but im not sure if you'd be interested in that)
the lyrics make me think of hopelessness
not so much poverty

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my heart isn't black, it's just dirty from the floors

something in the way: nirvana

oh, and living on a prayer by bon jovi

thank yous and please keep them comming

its fora documentary

working class can't get ahead going nowhere kinds of bullshit

for some reason that song reminds me of hope. I love the song. it doesn't remind me of povrety really though just coz of the purpose.

Working Class Hero - John Lennon (or Marianne Faithfull)

Pusherman-Curtis Mayfield

well, it reminds me of hope too, but hoping to be out of poverty.

Dirty Boulevard Lou Reed

James McMurtry - We Can't Make it Here Anymore

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"Moderate intoxication includes additional abnormalities such as hyperactive bowel sounds,"

Apache Indian-In the Ghetto

The Jam Bricks and Mortar ( among others)
Lyrics:
Bricks and mortar, reflecting social change,
Cracks in the pavement, reveal cravings for success
Why do we try to hide our past
By pulling down houses and build car parks
Windows and mirrors like a two-way glass
This is progress, nothing stands in its path
Yellow bulldozers, the donkey jackets and J.C.B.'s
While hundreds are homeless they're constructing a parking space
Why do they have to knock them down
And leave the site dormant for months on end?
Who has the right to make that choice?
When modern houses cost forty grand
Tell me!
Bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar
Knock 'em down!

The Clash One More Time

Must I get a witness? for all this misery
There's no need to, brothers everybody can see
That its one more time in the ghetto you know
One more time if you please now
One more time to the dying man
They say one more time if you please

The old lady kicks karate
For just a little walk down the street
The little baby he knows kung fu
He tries it on those he meets
Cos its a one more time!

You don't need no silicone to calculate poverty
Watch when Watts town burns again
The bus goes to Montgomery

Cos it's a one more time in the ghetto
One more time if you please
One more time for the dying man
One more time to be free

Billy Bragg To Have and Have Not ( Among others)
Lyrics:
Up in the morning and out to school
Mother says there'll be no work next year
Qualifications once the Golden Rule
Are now just pieces of paper

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

If you look the part you'll get the job
In last year's trousers and your old school shoes
The truth is son, it's a buyer's market
They can afford to pick and choose

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because I dress like this
Doesn't mean I'm a communist

The factories are closing and the army's full -
I don't know what I'm going to do
But I've come to see in the Land of the Free
There's only a future for the Chosen Few

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards

At twenty one you're on top of the scrapheap
At sixteen you were top of the class
All they taught you at school
Was how to be a good worker
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself

Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards


Lou Reed Lyrics for Dirty Blvd.
Pedro lives out of the wilshire hotel
He looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
His father beats him cause hes too tired to beg

Hes got 9 brothers and sisters
Theyre brought up on their knees
Its hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
But thats a slim chance hes going to the boulevard

Hes going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
Hes going out, to the dirty boulevard
Hes going down, to the dirty boulevard

This room cost 2,000 dollars a month
You can believe it man its true
Somewhere a landlords laughing till he shits his pants
No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
They dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard

Give me your hungry, your tired your poor Ill piss on em
Thats what the statue of bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, lets club em to death
And get it over with and just dump em on the boulevard

Get to end up, on the dirty boulevard
Going out, to the dirty boulevard
Hes going down, on the dirty boulevard
Going out

Outside its a bright night
Theres an opera at lincoln center
Movie stars arrive by limousine
The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of manhattan
But the lights are out on the mean streets

A small kid stands by the lincoln tunnel
Hes selling plastic roses for a buck
The traffics backed up to 39th street
The tv whores are calling the cops out for a suck

And back at the wilshire, pedro sits there dreaming
Hes found a book on magic in a garbage can
He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling
At the count of 3 he says, I hope I can disappear

And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly-fly-fly-fly, from dirty boulevard

I want to fly away
I want to fly
Fly, fly away
I want to fly
Fly-fly away (fly a-)
Fly-fly-fly (-way, ooohhh...)
Fly-fly away (I want to fly-fly away)
Fly away (I want to fly, wow-woh, no, fly away)


James McMurtry "We Can't Make it Here"

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore

That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna set there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore

The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore

Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war
And we can't make it here anymore

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"Moderate intoxication includes additional abnormalities such as hyperactive bowel sounds,"

Supremes-Love Child

Both Phil Collins and Sporty Spice have released singles about poverty that were hopeless. Does that count? "Another day in paradise" and "that shit which goes: I can't live without my phone/you don't even have a home" respectively.

Paula Cole Bethlehem

tracy chapman - fast car

am i going to hell because i laugh my ass off every time i hear that lyric?

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Joy Division--Transmission