I think you guys are taking the lines to literally..
The line, "I hope I can pass high school means nothing." reflects to me the difficulty children of poor families have in school. There are many reasons why children of working class parents do significantly worse than middle class students, and I think this song reflects them very well.
"Short love with a long divorce, And a couple of kids, of course" - Working class families have higher divorce rates, have more children, and marry more often than middle and upper class families, which are covered in the segment in this song ending with "They don't mean anything", because, to a working class family, an additional child or another divorce just doesn't have that much of an effect, where as, in a middle or upper class family, a divorce is financially devastating, and an additional child will add up to hundreds of thousands of extra dollars (assuming they are paying for their college, an assuming a "trailer trash" parent would not have the funds to do so)
This next line: "Taking heartache with hard work, Goddamn I am such a jerk, I can't do anything" reflects how societies view poor families as a complete failure, and how members of the working class internalize the negative views and end up thinking they are worthless pieces of "Trailer Trash"
"And I shout that you're all fakes
And you should have seen the look on your face
And I guess that's what it takes
When comparing your bellyaches" - I think this set of lines is a response to the Rich/middle class people, who he, the "Trailer Trash", is calling fake, because society assumes that "anyone can make it," and the middle class is part of a higher class because THEY worked harder than their working counter part, when those born into the working class have many more barriers to success than those born into the middle class.
Anyways, to me, its a song with very meaningful lyrics, but I've probably imposed a lot of personal bias in my description, as I have taken my courses in sociology especially focusing on Class.
I think you guys are taking the lines to literally..
The line, "I hope I can pass high school means nothing." reflects to me the difficulty children of poor families have in school. There are many reasons why children of working class parents do significantly worse than middle class students, and I think this song reflects them very well.
"Short love with a long divorce, And a couple of kids, of course" - Working class families have higher divorce rates, have more children, and marry more often than middle and upper class families, which are covered in the segment in this song ending with "They don't mean anything", because, to a working class family, an additional child or another divorce just doesn't have that much of an effect, where as, in a middle or upper class family, a divorce is financially devastating, and an additional child will add up to hundreds of thousands of extra dollars (assuming they are paying for their college, an assuming a "trailer trash" parent would not have the funds to do so)
This next line: "Taking heartache with hard work, Goddamn I am such a jerk, I can't do anything" reflects how societies view poor families as a complete failure, and how members of the working class internalize the negative views and end up thinking they are worthless pieces of "Trailer Trash"
"And I shout that you're all fakes And you should have seen the look on your face And I guess that's what it takes When comparing your bellyaches" - I think this set of lines is a response to the Rich/middle class people, who he, the "Trailer Trash", is calling fake, because society assumes that "anyone can make it," and the middle class is part of a higher class because THEY worked harder than their working counter part, when those born into the working class have many more barriers to success than those born into the middle class.
Anyways, to me, its a song with very meaningful lyrics, but I've probably imposed a lot of personal bias in my description, as I have taken my courses in sociology especially focusing on Class.
@Groatog your interpretation was very literal also
@Groatog your interpretation was very literal also