ABSTRACT
Most working-class people are not climbing; they do not quarrel with their general level; they only want the little more that allows a few frills. Many of the older working-class hobbies have a similar character. 'Life is no bed of roses,' they assume; but 'tomorrow will take care of itself : on this side the working-classes have been cheerful existentialists for ages. They are geographically united, they overlap, they have concurrent lives; but they also have distinctive atmospheres. Most working-class pleasures tend to be mass-pleasures, overcrowded and sprawling. Some features of songs and singing among the working-classes illustrate better than anything else both their contact with older traditions and their capacity for assimilating and modifying new material to their established interests. The working-class groups sing some of the songs their grandparents sang. Most of the songs express, in their melodies, in their verses, in the manner in which they must be sung, the 'feeling heart'.
