The Greatest Working Class Rip Off Lyrics
a classic Crass song, with a very strong message as usual.
i agree, the message is great, more people need to hear this song
I don't know how much of it is actually opposed to class conciousness. It seems to me to be more about recuperated "class conciousness" (If you follow the situationsit jargon). The kind of blind "class conciousness" that takes a quasi-nationalistic form. Class conciousness can be useful, in asmuch as it is recognized to be a means not an end (or for that matter, the best possible means). When it becomes warped it is dangerous. It becomes exclusionary and reactionary, and thus ineffectual as securing the ends it was meant to serve as means to . Everyone is opressed by modern capitalist society (you could even argue that the opressors are), to exclude others on somewhat irrelevant notions like "class" is harmful. Social Revolution must be made by everyone who is opressed and I think that is what crass is saying. On a bit of a side note, you've got to be sure not to let a revolutionary situation be hijacked by appeaser's (of any class). Not to say that a member of lower class can't compromise or hijack a situation, but middle class participants are more likely to follow the reformist path, simply because being (for the most part) determines conciousness. The idea that being determines conciousness is of course the only reason that class conciousness is in anyway useful, but me thinks it the inclusion of "for the most part" is more accurate.
skunkbythebrook, wordy but somewhat true. The song is, I think, not as broad and much more about the Oi! "movement" and the false revolutionary mobilization of the working class that it brought-- more fighting others than fighting the system that oppresses them. Listen to "Hurry Up Garry" (the references in the title being Garry Bushell and "Hurry Up Harry" by Sham 69) for more evidence of Crass's general dislike for the skin movement, and even funnier, Chumbawamba's joke song "I'm Thick" they slipped onto a skinhead music compilation in 86 or so.
when i firts heard this song i din't think much of it but after reading the lyrics thats deep! kick ass crass song
I love this song, probably one of my favourites particularly the ranty verse at the end.
In terms of content its a swipe at the workerism of the Oi! movement, which however sincere morphed into something else. Id take issue with MrGoodBar and skunkbythebrook, Crass however amazing they were in terms of praxis and dissenting, had really naff class politics and they're politics was too personal and lifestyle based for my liking, to say nothing of all peace/hippie stuff. You can gleam this from songs like "White Punks On Hope" and the line "Beat the system, beat its rule/ Ain't got no class, I ain't a fool"
It's a dig the Oi scene in the UK at the time which walked a fine line between "working class protest" and thuggery as the song suggests. I don't think it was a blanket attack on the entire scene as Steve Ignorant was mates with The Business.
awesome song. fuck all those douchebag oi for the working class dicks. all that working class pride shit (which is extrememly present in the 'punk' scene today) does is just create more segregation and hate.