"Blowin' Smoke"

This song by Kacey Musgraves seems to encapsulate the idea of working-class aspirations perfectly. With the lyrics “We all say that we’ll quit someday/When our ship comes in, we'll just sail away,” Musgraves presents the desire to quit a low paying job and leave the town she feels stuck in, demonstrating her continued ability to dream about something more than what she currently has as a working-class person.

This song is interesting because of its narrative form. She explains briefly the lives of a few waitresses, all of whom need the money they get from working at the restaurant. All of whom want to quit their job because it is not worth the money they make. But most of whom continue working and just threaten to quit. In this song, we see a collective desire for upward movement and a recognition that these waitresses deserve an income that matches the effort they put into their work and grants them a little dignity. At the same time, however, we see the way their class status has forced them to feel static because they understand that they are just “blowin’ smoke.” They are accepting the fact that they are not actually going to do anything about these aspirations they have because it does not seem plausible. Society has told them that their current placement in the social hierarchy is a permanent one. That is what they have internalized and so movement away from their current lifestyles does not seem to be in the cards, even if they all continue to dream about it.