“I sing out to the youth of the slums”: Morrissey and Class Disgust

In this article, we examine “The Slum Mums,” a song that was written by popular music icon Morrissey about the contempt felt for lone female mothers in the UK under the New Labour government. We hold that the song pre-empted the intensification of gendered and classed disgust discourses which have become even more prevalent in the UK and elsewhere in the current age of austerity. The article demonstrates that popular music can be an important site of counter-hegemonic discourse. Our approach is socio-cultural and contextual and we are also concerned with tracking the emotional and somatic responses this song is capable of generating, particularly in terms of registering an uncomfortable awareness of the realities of gendered discourses of class disgust.