Who singer says white working class are on bottom rung of society
THE white working class are on the bottom rung of British society under the heel of everything, Roger Daltrey claims.
The Who singer said that as a teenager in the late 1950s he and his peers identified with US blues singers because of a similarity in suffering.
He said that as a result of this psychological connection, British boys in his generation worshipped US stars like Howlin’ Wolf, who faced discrimination back home.
Roger, 76, suggests that the kind of community he grew up in west London remains at the bottom of the pile. He said: “I’ve often wondered why British white workingclass kids, all about 16, 17, 18 years old, worshipped these guys.
“And I suddenly realised we were probably nearer to what these guys had suffered in their communities because white working class was the bottom rung then of the class system. Today the white working class is still bottom rung under the heel of everything else on top. I often wonder if there wasn’t a psychological connection going on there.
“We just worshipped [ the blues singers]. They came here and were treated like royalty.”
Roger said devastation from the Second World War sparked the rock revolution – and he thinks the adversity spurred on creativity, and Covid- 19 could do the same.
Speaking on DJ Chris Evans’s How To Wow podcast, Roger said: “Because we came from post war nothing, everything was levelled, and our playgrounds were the bomb sites and everybody in a rock band’s similar.
“We all talk about the bomb sites, the best playground in the world for kids.
“Health and safety today wouldn’t let you go near them but nobody got killed.
“It taught us to be daring and taught us to grow up and you worked together as people. We were on the floor and out of that terrible, terrible time comes some of the most creative work of that whole century.
“And could it have come without being that far down in the gutter? Probably not.
“We were flat on the floor, we had nothing, we were barely getting the windows and roofs back on our houses. It’s amazing we had very little money but we were happy.”
He added: “Its amazing that out of that adversity comes the most creative periods of the 20th century. And maybe that’s what will happen after this.”