In the most famous song of his solo career, "Imagine," John Lennon dared to dream about a beautiful, utopian society. But in another classic tune from his post-Beatles years, Lennon painted a stark, brutal portrait of the real world: "Working Class Hero."
Released on the groundbreaking 1970 album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, "Working Class Hero" is a powerful, stripped-down ballad featuring just Lennon and his guitar.
"I think it’s a revolutionary song — it’s really just revolutionary," Lennon said in a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner, later included in Wenner's book, Lennon Remembers.
"I just think its concept is revolutionary...I hope it’s about what ‘Give Peace A Chance’ was about," Lennon added. "But I don’t know — on the other hand, it might just be ignored. I think it’s for the people like me who are working class, who are supposed to be processed into the middle classes, or into the machinery. It’s my experience, and I hope it’s just a warning to people, ‘Working Class Hero.'"
Over 50 years after Lennon wrote "Working Class Hero," the lyrics are still all too relevant:
As soon as you're born they make you feel smallBy giving you no time instead of it all'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to beA working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at schoolThey hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool'Til you're so f—king crazy you can't follow their rules
That last bit, along with the line "But you're still f—king peasants as far as I can see," led to a ban on "Working Class Hero" by some radio stations. While Lennon's record label, EMI, did not censor the actual song, they insisted on substituting the so-called profanities with an asterisk on the lyric sheet, per The Beatles Bible.
"I put it in because it does fit," Lennon told Wenner. "I didn’t even realize there was two in till somebody pointed it out. And actually, when I sang it, I missed a bloody verse. I had to edit it in. But you do say ‘f—g crazy,’ don’t you? That’s how I speak. I was very near to it many times in the past, but I would deliberately not put it in, which is the real hypocrisy, the real stupidity. I would deliberately not say things, because it might upset somebody, or whatever I was frightened of."
Chris Walter / Getty Images
The anger articulated in Lennon's lyrics was expressed through an equally passionate vocal performance, which he labored over intensely. In a 2010 interview with Uncut, tape op Andy Stephens remembered the process of recording "Working Class Hero" as a frustrating one for Lennon, taking "an endless number of takes…well over 100, probably 120, 130."
“If the mix in his headphones wasn’t exactly what he wanted, he would take them off and slam them into the wall,” Stephens said. “He wouldn’t say, ‘Can I have a bit more guitar?’ He would literally rip the cans off his head and smash them into the wall, then walk out of the studio.”
Lennon's painstaking efforts certainly paid off. "Working Class Hero" is still considered to be one of his most outstanding efforts; in 2014, Stereogum ranked the song at #3 on a list of Lennon's 10 best solo songs, praising it as "a stark, acoustic ballad reminiscent of Bob Dylan's 'Masters of War'" and "a painful recognition that the Age of Aquarius has meant less than zero."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lennon himself resisted the idea that "Working Class Hero" was influenced by Dylan.
"Well, anybody that sings with a guitar and just sings about something heavy will tend to sound like Dylan," he pointed out to Wenner. "I’m bound to be influenced by [those] because that’s the only kind of really folk music I ever listened to...So the only folk music I know is those about miners up in Newcastle. Or Dylan. So in that way I’ve been influenced, but it doesn’t sound like Dylan to me."
Related: John Lennon Thought This Bob Dylan Song Was So 'Pathetic' and 'Embarrassing' He Wrote a Parody
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