Salt of the Earth

Let's think of the humble of birth

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for today’s song, “Salt of the Earth”, by The Rolling Stones. If you’d like to hear the song before you read about it, I’ve included a YouTube video below the article. 

Below, you’ll find my interpretation of the lyrics which are written in italics. Comments and questions are welcome. For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below. TOEIC (PBT) 450+, Eiken 2, CEFR B1. (toeic 400点から600点)

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Woman working in a factory in the 1940s (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

(581 words)

Today’s song celebrates those of us who work at our jobs day in and day out. Or is it? There is a quote I found on several websites:

"The song is total cynicism. I'm saying those people haven't any power and they never will have." -- Mick Jagger, 1970

I haven’t been able to locate the source of this quote, so if any of our readers have information about this, please leave a message in the comments section.

The lyrics certainly do sound like the songwriter is praising the working class. Someone who is the “salt of the earth” is a person who is very kind, reliable, and honest. People who are “lowly of birth” are average people who do not have billions of dollars or who are relatives of kings and queens.

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

There are common people who take up the job of defending their country or of supporting its people during disasters. Although soldiers can be both male and female, here, the song refers to the soldier’s wife who is back at home, planting the crops and “keeping the home fires burning” (taking care of the home).

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back-breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

When I search a faceless crowd (of people I don’t recognize)
A swirling mass of gray and black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

…

The next lines refer to the people (wavering millions who, perhaps, cannot decide on who to vote for?) who need good leaders in government, but the leaders are not always honest. They also do not always make good decisions for the country.
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leading but get gamblers instead

Who is it that chooses the leaders of a country? In a democratic system, it is the people who elect them. If you are a “stay-at-home” voter and don’t go to the polls to vote, you don’t have any voice in who gets elected. 

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray-suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

Workers of the Caboolture Butter Factory, Brisbane, Australia, c 1912 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Spare a thought for the rag taggy people “Ragtag” is and adjective that means disorganized, not tidy, or even undesirable. In other words, the average worker who isn’t one of the social elite.
…

"Let's drink to the two thousand million” is a poetic of referring to the global population at the time. When the song was released in 1968, the world’s population was around 3.5 billion, so "two thousand million" (or 2 billion) may refer to a large part of humanity, especially the common, working-class people who were not born rich (of humble birth).

Let's drink to the hardworking people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to the two thousand million
Let's think of the humble of birth

The song celebrates ordinary people — "the salt of the earth" — and the lyrics symbolize raising our glasses to toast all those heroes. It is sung in solidarity with the majority of workers who keep the world going through hard work, even though they often go unrecognized or unrewarded.

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Question:

Do you think the song really is celebrating the working people or is it more cynical as the (possible) Mick Jagger quote says?

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Vocabulary

cynicism 皮肉
praise 賞賛 
reliable 信頼できる
democratic 民主的
grafter 汚職者
undesirable 望ましくない
humble 謙虚
unrecognized 認められない
unrewarded 報われない

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