A Song I Love – Working Class Hero – Music Enthusiast – At the junction of rock, blues, R&B, jazz, pop,and soul

On his first solo post-Beatles album – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band– John Lennon took a marked detour from Beatlemania. Well, not so marked compared to his later Beatles output. But certainly as compared to the vast majority of what he did with the Beatles. But even as early as 1965, the cracks were beginning to show. (Although we didn’t know it at the time).

As noted in this post from my Beatles series, his song ‘Help’ was – according to him – a real cry for assistance. He was lost in a high-pressure celebrity world, even at one point referring to his ‘fat Elvis period’ when he was eating and drinking too much.

So when he came out with this remarkable first album, it was interesting (to say the least) to see not only how autobiographical it was but also how painful it was. There are several extraordinary songs on the album such as “Mother,” “Isolation,” “God,” and “Remember.”

But for me the crowning achievement was a song called “Working Class Hero.” By this time Lennon had dropped any pretense of sugarcoating his lyrics and was calling it as he saw it. (Frankly, I sometimes missed that earlier artistry. But this was something altogether deeper.)

I find it interesting that Lennon – a Dylan devotee – says, “When they’ve tortured and scared you for 20 odd years, then they expect you to pick a career.” Dylan – in “Subterranean Homesick Blues” says, “Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift.” Indeed. Anyway, I won’t try to put any interpretive spin on this. The words speak for themselves.

Working Class Hero

As soon as you’re born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
‘Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all