Shove It

I had a similar interpretation to Jamaican's, but with some subtle differences. There's a definite political message here, especially the "war tactics make me sick" lines. That part is about being tired of dirty political messages, trying to sell positive social change with hatred, war, and slandering others. JamaicanB totally taps into that part of the message. However, I think the song is relating this trend to other social problems. These issues are related or inseparable.

The first section of the song is about being from a rougher area. While not explicitly about race, I feel what she's saying as a non-black person of color. She's singing about pride in where you come from, even if most people don't consider it much. It's as if she's saying, "Despite where I come from, I've still got soul and you can't just run over me as a person." We might not be rich, but we've got soul. This ties into later lines when she says,

"I hear them all say that I got heart but not everything that it takes"

Your background, whether it's race or being poor or how you grew up, is often used to hold you down. Others make assumptions that you can't do as much because of this. Maybe I'm biased, but I'm the first of my family to graduate high school and I used to hear this (you got heart, but you gotta have more than THAT to make it) through high school and college all the time. The lyrics talk about the common experience of lots of people like me. You can't keep us down because of where we come from.

The second section is about the politics of keeping people down, as JamaicanB posted. Just because of who we are, we're not going to put up with power-hungry, war-mongering politics. We know better BECAUSE of where we come from. It's our duty to say that there's another way.

The last section is about being true to yourself despite "the man" keeping you down. While I personally connect with this section, I also think that the artist is talking about her own music. People might criticize her for being eccentric, but at least she's not selling out. She's willing to make what she feels inside and to hell with people who don't think she has what it takes.

The whole song weaves these three things together. It's about being true to yourself despite the oppression we face.

When she chants "We think you're a joke. Shove your hope where it don't shine," she's making two statements at once. The first is what some prejudiced person/dirty politician/hipster-wannabe music critic might say to you, "Look at who you are, all hopeful, but you're nobody. We think you're a joke. Shove your hope where it don't shine." However, these words themselves can be reclaimed. We don't have to be held down, "We know how you work and you use guns cause you don't have any other strength. We gain soul from where we come from and who we are. We think you're a joke. Shove your hope where it don't shine."

The chant can be heard both ways. I think she's asking us to decide which way we hear it, but that's just me.