I've never 'got'

That used to be a lot clearer back when there were laws restricting social mobility and even how you could spend your money, depending on your class (check out sumptuary laws if you hadn't heard of those). As the aristocracy gradually lost absolute power, class definitions became more implicit than explicit. Outside of simple stereotypes, middle class has mostly become the bit in between and the least well defined. People can find themselves there just because they no longer seem to fit anywhere else.

Thus my confusion, it's such a wide swath, and less defined out here. Oh well.

much more nebulous out here in Canader as a lot of the immigrant population came to escape that very thing.

I don't know so much about Canada, but USians say the same thing and yet they absolutely do have social classes and social mobility problems. Partly that's hidden (or at least muddled) by the legacy of slavery, partly by their widespread unwillingness to even admit it's a thing. Class is a big factor in Trump's core base and that's one of the reasons Democrats find it so difficult to counter it

I don't really like him but I do 'get' him; t at least his place in pop culture. Kind of similar to Bill Hicks, kind of mind blowing to young people just about finding themselves and starting to search for more than the status quo. Storytelling/poetry via folk music is a very old tradition and whether you like it or not the cultural impact is understandable imo

As an example, Selasi Setufe was recently awarded an MBE for services to diversity in architecture, in large part for founding the network Black Females in Architecture. Is that a sexist or uninformed use?

Oh I'm not saying there isn't any classism out here, just figuring out where one starts* and the other ends is tough, especially because in Canada we're such a mixed bag and since the sixties or so different migrant groups have been more or less (depending on the government of the day) encouraged to retain their identity compared to the melting pot approach more common in the US.

*the middle class

His songs are better appreciated when sung by someone else. Considering how many covers there are, I'd think there's at least one that speaks to you.

All along the watchtower by Jimi Hendrix is up there as one of my perfect songs

I bought about 6 Dylan LPs trying to 'get' him before giving it up as a bad job. Like other people doing his songs, just can't get on with his voice.

Was the same with the Smiths, always hated Morrissey's voice - but at least that spares me trying to square liking their music while knowing their singer is basically Hitler these days.

Storytelling/poetry via folk music is a very old tradition and whether you like it or not the cultural impact is understandable IMO

No question - I love CSN, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, John Martyn, Ellen Mcllwaine, Caroline Peyton, C King, Fairpoint C, etc

Just don't 'hear' Dylan.

Castles Made of Sand is up there for me.

Getting some of their income from invested capital, basically. There are lots of people who think they're middle class yet get all their income through working. They're wrong.

Dylan writes amazing songs, he just shouldn't be allowed to perform them himself.

Trump's core base are lower-middle-class though, aren't they? Mom-and-Pop business owners masquerading as working class people.

I said class, I didn't specify. Class resentments is a key thing he plays on. But he does have a fair blue collar following.

Sparks.

Jeebus, and you like Mcllwaine!
Here, this is one of my favourites of his, even though I’m not a huge fan this just straight up rocks my world.
https://youtu.be/12rUOLtbQDk

I'm not mad keen on Dylan but It's all over now Baby Blue is brilliant

Sure, when 13th Floor Elevators do it.

I never got why middle class is a thing. There's working class and the capitalist class, who own the means of production.
The only difference between working class and what people suppose middle class means, is having higher wages i guess? Is middle class the accomplice class of the capitalist class? That would make a bit more sense to me, but then few would consider themselves middle class i guess.

I never got why middle class is a thing

Because it's useful to make a distinction between the life experiences of a surgeon who went to Oxford and a factory worker in Glasgow

I never got why middle class is a thing

Divide and conquer.

I never got why middle class is a thing. There's working class and the capitalist class, who own the means of production.

Well, that's essentially how Marx saw it but a major problem with that pov is that even back then only a very small percentage actually owned those means of production. And since then industrialisation, automation and computerisation has reduced the percentage who are actually involved in the production bit.

The only difference between working class and what people suppose middle class means, is having higher wages i guess?

Bit more than that. Education, expectations from life, view of personal position in society, ways of expressing these things... one reason the middle classes expanded so much post WWII is that a lot of people from working class backgrounds got access to education to a level none of their predecessors had. And discovered they were now talking a different language and viewed as different by the social groups they came from. Some of them wrote plays about it. Involving kitchen sinks, for some reason.

How you talk about things has looong been a class identifier in this country at least.

Is middle class the accomplice class of the capitalist class?

Is a teacher a capitalist lackey training children to be slaves or a dangerous subversive teaching them unpatriotic and subversive beliefs? For some time now, the Tories have mostly taken the latter viewpoint and also applied it to a lot of other bits of the middle class (all those lefty lawyers, you know).

I always considered it related to a person's options - you start at the top with the rich bastards who can do literally whatever they want with no risk whatsoever. As you drop down your options decrease and your level of risk increases.

Attitude, Environment, Language, Manners, Culture etc.

Think about the word 'class', broadly. Its not money.

'blahdeblah was a class act'
'this guitar is in a different class'

There are poor Lords, Baronesses, Heirs to estates etc.

The same things that define upper and working classes really. IMO.