Working Class Hero
by John Lennon, 1970
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
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4 comments:
John Lennon and Pete Townshend — my favourite two songwriters from my teenaged years. (Later I would add Bruce Cockburn to round out the Trinity.)
Lennon produced two great solo albums: Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. "Working Class Hero" is from Plastic Ono Band.
I don't know whether you know his biography, but Lennon was in primal scream therapy at the time. The whole disc is raw with emotion. Musically, he abandoned the multilayered sophistication of the Beatles' later albums. Just him on piano or guitar, Ringo on drums, and Klaus Voormann (a friend of the Beatles dating back to the Hamburg years) on bass. He didn't want anyone in the studio who wasn't an intimate friend.
Lyrically and emotionally, no one has ever worn their heart on their sleeve like Lennon did on this disc. The primal scream therapy comes through on "Mother" and "Well Well Well", where Lennon literally screams in a way that sounds like his lungs will come right out through his mouth. (The version of "Mother" that appears on the Greatest Hits packages is truncated — the album version is longer, with much more screaming.) I usually listened to it with headphones on, because I found it embarrassing to listen to "Well Well Well" when anyone else came into the room.
Have you heard the song "God" (also on Plastic Ono Band), in which Lennon lists all the things he had once explored but no longer believes in? You could definitely relate to that one! In the end, the only thing he had left to believe in was his love affair with Yoko. (And even that, sadly, seems to have withered significantly by the time of his death.)
If you haven't heard the whole disc, I highly recommend it. It's pretty bleak! But it contains numerous great, raw performances: a white guy's version of the blues.
It sounds like something I would enjoy - if 'enjoy' is the right word. I will keep it in mind.
marylin manson re-made that song..
i'm not going to say its better or worse. but i do have a tendancy to enjoy deep sounds... and his version was deep.. the lyrics are top notch, which i credit john lennon for.
I haven't heard Manson's version. But there's an old recording of it by Marianne Faithfull that is utterly terrifying. Faithfull was a hard-used, drug-addict sort of woman. Her voice suits the song perfectly, but it's downright nightmarish.
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