The song is a very specific attack on "poverty tourism": the tendency for rich - often very rich - college kids to affect to live like ordinary folks, but never actually having any of the risk or stress that ordinary folk confront every day.
The critical line is:
"If you called your Dad he could stop it all"
Cocker writes from the perspective on one who doesn't have a daddy who can come and fix it all (if anything he will be supporting his dad, by getting the hell out of Sheffield and aspiring a bit).
But there's a warning
"Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out,they'll tear your insides out
'Cause everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh"
Being working class isn't a tourist trip and it is gratuitously offensive to treat it as such.
The song is a very specific attack on "poverty tourism": the tendency for rich - often very rich - college kids to affect to live like ordinary folks, but never actually having any of the risk or stress that ordinary folk confront every day.
The critical line is:
"If you called your Dad he could stop it all"
Cocker writes from the perspective on one who doesn't have a daddy who can come and fix it all (if anything he will be supporting his dad, by getting the hell out of Sheffield and aspiring a bit).
But there's a warning
"Like a dog lying in a corner They will bite you and never warn you Look out,they'll tear your insides out 'Cause everybody hates a tourist Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh"
Being working class isn't a tourist trip and it is gratuitously offensive to treat it as such.