Bourgeois

This song tells the story of a middle class girl. "Bourgeois, why would you care for more?," sings Thomas Mars. "They give you almost everything, you believed almost anything." The vocalist told Spin magazine this is one of a couple of songs on Bankrupt! that examine "the beauty of the fake."

The song title references the French word 'Bourgeoisie,' which originally denoted the wealthy stratum of the middle class that originated during the latter part of the Middle Ages. In time, the French term came to encompass both the upper and middles classes, whilst Socialists apply the word to the whole propertied class, as distinct from the proletariat. In English, however, 'Bourgeoisie' (and bourgeois) means the social class above the workers and peasants, and below the nobility. The term has also acquired a contemptuous sense, implying commonplace, philistine respectability.