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He plays the electric guitars that sound like actual cats on “Stray Cat Blues”—all of them—and even croaks the opening lines of “Salt of the Earth,” the album’s closer, which might be the most convincing attempt at “political” songwriting in the Stones’ catalog.

The salt of the earth, the heart of the heartland, the men and women who put food on your table.

“We really have the salt of the earth — the people who have stuck around, they’re really good people,” said Arguelles, who’s encouraged by the new and recalled workers that are coming in to her cafe, saying they bring an exciting energy.

For working people, the ones our politicians used to salute as the salt of the earth, the situation never improves.

“If it is communistic to depict poverty in the United States, then Life magazine, the New York Times and President Johnson himself, in trying to open our eyes on this subject, are purveyors of Communism,” Mr. Dickstein argued in court, according to thebook “Salt of the Earth: The Story of a Film” by director Herbert Biberman.