‘Working Class Hero’: John Lennon’s 1975 bid to be “revolutionary”
John Lennon. Working class. Revolutionary. Each of those things were certainly true separately, but maybe not all at once.
The blunt fact of the matter was that when he was still working class, he was not a worldwide icon. And at the same time, by the point that he could be considered a revolutionary, the memories of his deeply-rooted Liverpool upbringing were pretty far from view. His choice to reclaim his origins could be met with both pride and a sniff of derision.
Of course, Lennon championed many major global causes during his life, but his core message of peace also drove him to speak for the communities he grew up in: his friends, his family and his neighbours. In doing so, he cast himself as a ‘Working Class Hero’.
In fairness to him, Lennon’s entire point was to reflect the state of the transition he had undergone himself – that working-class people were being stripped of their identities and sense of togetherness, set to be processed into the middle-class “machine”. Essentially, he wanted to stick it to the man and challenge what he felt was going unsaid.
Naturally, ever the humble custodian, Lennon gave a reserved estimation of his own work. “I think it’s a revolutionary song – it’s really just revolutionary. I just think its concept is revolutionary.” You have to say, for someone so famously a prolific wordsmith, it wasn’t exactly the most stunning description.
But even still, if nothing else, Lennon’s aims for the song were very clear. In a less politically correct translation from 1970 to now, he also said, “I hope it’s for workers and not for tarts and fags,” but you still get the gist of what he meant. “I hope it’s about what ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was about. But I don’t know – on the other hand, it might just be ignored.”
Ultimately, given that the song came from the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, the first solo effort after the demise of The Beatles, ‘Working Class Hero’ was the laying out of a manifesto, of sorts, to what he wanted to achieve while marching to the beat of his own drum. There were palpable elements of anxiety about the new venture, but at the end of the day, as Lennon said himself, “It’s my experience, and I hope it’s just a warning to people.”
As such, the former Beatle emblazoning himself over the working-class flag as his first solo foray was a bold move to make. How that went down to the people outside his own politically-charged bubble was another matter, but it was clearly a song that kept its searing resonance to him, as he re-released it five years after the original as the B-side to ‘Imagine’.
Whether Lennon really lived up to his slightly romantic vision of ‘Working Class Hero’ warrants a whole different discussion, but it was nevertheless evident in everything he ever did that he never stopped being acutely aware of just how much his life had changed. His world had spun on its head, but he was still that same Liverpool boy at heart.
