Working Class Hero
| Working Class Hero | |
|---|---|
| John Lennon | |
| publication | December 11, 1970 (album)
24 October 175 (single) |
| length | 3:48 |
| Genre (s) | Folk |
| Author (s) | John Lennon |
| text | John Lennon |
| Producer (s) | John Lennon, Yoko Ono , Phil Spector |
| Publisher (s) | Apple Records |
Working Class Hero , is a song by John Lennon . It appeared on the John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band album in 1970 , his first album after the Beatles broke up .
theme
Working Class Hero is a political song about the social divide in class society . In a December 1970 interview with Lennon in Rolling Stone , it was about the working class being exploited by the middle class as "machines". Lennon also said in it, “I think it's a revolutionary song - it's really just revolutionary. I think this concept is revolutionary. It's for the worker, not chicks and fagots. It's about what Give Peace a Chance was all about . But I think, on the other hand, it will likely just be ignored. I think it's for people like me who come from the working class and get lost in the middle class or in their machinery. It is my experience and I hope it is a warning to people ”.
The chorus of the song is: (A "A working class hero is something to be" hero of the working class is something of importance).
Working Class Hero isn't Lennon's first political song. His series of political songs began with the Beatles Revolution in 1968 and continued with the release of Some Time in New York City in 1972 .
Origin and style
The song was recorded at EMI studios on September 27, 1970. Lennon sings and plays acoustic guitar as accompaniment. The chord progression is very simple and builds on A minor and G major , with a short detour to D major in one line of the chorus. Lennon's playing technique involves a riff with hammer-picking the E tone on the D string and then onto an open A string. The tone and style of the song resembles that of Masters of War and North Country Blues by Bob Dylan , a well-known Lennon influence. Both are based on Jean Ritchie's adaptation of the traditional English folk song Nottamun Town . Lennon recorded Working Class Hero over a hundred times before he was satisfied with the recording. The recording consists of two different recordings: The tone of the guitar and the vocals changes between 1:24 and 1:45 for the verse "When they've torture and scared you".
occupation
John Lennon - vocals , acoustic guitar
Controversy
In 1973 US Representative Harley Orrin Staggers heard the song - which read the lines, "'Til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules" (Until you get so damn crazy that you can no longer follow their rules) and "But you're still fucking peasants as I can see" features on the student radio WGTB. He then filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The station's manager Ken Sleeman faced a year in jail and a $ 10,000 fine but defended his decision to play the song by saying, "The people of Washington, DC are cultured enough to take the occasional word for four Accept letters in context and not get sexually aroused, offended or upset ". The charges were dropped. Other US radio stations, such as WBCN in Boston , banned the song for using the word "fucking". The album was released in Australia, with the swear word removed from the song and the text on the inside of the cover censored. [9]
Cover versions
- Marianne Faithfull covered the song on her 1979 album Broken English .
- David Bowie's band Tin Machine recorded a version of the song on their self-titled debut album in 1989.
- Marilyn Manson's cover of the song was released on his 2000 Disposable Teens single.
- Green Day contributed a cover of the song to Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur in 2007 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Working Class Hero. The Beatles Bible, 1970, accessed July 5, 2020 .
- ↑ Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone: 'Rolling Stone Music Now' Podcast: Legendary John Lennon Interview. Rolling Stone , 1970, accessed July 5, 2020 .
- ↑ chip Madiger, Scott Doneraile: LENNONOLOGY Strange Days Indeed - A Scrapbook Of Madness. 2015, ISBN 978-1-63110-175-5 , pp. 210 .
- ^ John Lennon: Lennon: The Solo Years . Ed .: Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. 1981, ISBN 0-88188-249-6 , pp. 156 .
- ↑ Peter Blecha: Taboo tunes: a history of banned bands & censored songs . Ed .: https://archive.org/details/tabootuneshistor0000blec/page/160/mode/2up . Backbeat Books, 2004, ISBN 0-87930-792-7 , 160-161 .
- ^ Danny Schechter: The More You Watch, the Less You Know: News Wars / Submerged Hopes / Media Adventures . Ed .: Seven Stories Press. 1997, ISBN 1-888363-80-0 , pp. 106 .