To Have And To Have Not

The lyrics describe a young person facing a bleak transition from school to work. Good grades and qualifications once seemed to promise a future, but jobs are scarce, factories are closing, and the army offers no easy solution. The repeated refrain pushes back against being judged as lazy or unsuccessful simply because someone else appears to be moving ahead. The mood is frustrated and critical, but the final advice also carries a note of encouragement: do not let a failing system make you give up on yourself.

“Pieces of paper” suggests that qualifications have lost their practical value: they exist, but no longer open doors. “A buyer’s market” means employers have many applicants and can choose whom to hire, leaving job seekers with little power. “On top of the scrapheap” compares a young person to discarded material, implying that society treats them as already useless despite their earlier success at school.

The song suggests that hardship is not proof of a person’s lack of effort or worth. Its contrast between “going forwards” and “going backwards” questions the assumption that one person’s progress makes another person a failure. The phrase “the chosen few” sounds bleak, but it may express the speaker’s sense of exclusion rather than a literal claim that only a small group can ever succeed. The ending is therefore both angry at unfair conditions and cautiously hopeful about personal resilience.