WORKING CLASS HERO

JOHN LENNON PLASTIC ONO BAND

"TITTER YE NOT"

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There was this posh rich man who went to this very expensive restaurant for a lavish dinner. He called a

waiter over, and ordered a French soup.

Moments later, the

waiter returned with his

thumb pokeing inside

the soup bowl. Seeing this disgusting sight, the gentleman was dis-mayed, but with regard to his gentlemanly manner, remained quiet.

He then ordered a appetiser, and the main course. During each of his courses, he noticed that the waiter was always poking his thumb into the dish. This time, the man was utterly annoyed, but still stayed calm. After eating his meal, he ordered an ice cream for dessert.

Minutes later, the waiter returned with a bowl of ice cream, but this time his thumb was not inside the bowl. This time, the man became curious, and decided to confront the waiter.

"Excuse me, why did you put your thumb into my soup, appetiser, and main course, but not in the ice cream?"

The waiter, feeling

ashamed, confided in his customer, and

confessed, "So sorry sir. I have a severe case of Arthritis in my thumb. Poking it into a hot environment usually brings a soothing feeling. That's why I had it in your warm meals.

Cold, makes my pain worse. That's why I had it away when I brought you the ice cream." The man became enraged. He violently shouted at the waiter.

"YOU BUNGLING IDIOT! DON'T YOU KNOW THAT I'M A POSH MAN.

I DON'T LIKE PEASANTS POKING THEIR DISEASED

THUMB'S IN MY FOOD! IF YOU WANT SO MUCH WARMTH WHY DON'T YOU POKE YOUR BLOODY FINGER IN YOUR STINKING ARSE?!"

The waiter, looked around quite calmly, and whispered to the customer,

"Yes sir, that's exactly what I do when I'm in the kitchen".

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WORKING CLASS HERO MERCHANDISE

Lyrics for Working Class Hero By John Lennon

As soon as your 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 you're classless and

free,
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the fool on the hill,
A working class hero is something to be.
A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero, well just follow me.

"Working Class Hero" is a song from John Lennon's first post-

Beatles solo album, 1970's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.

The song is a commentary/criticism on the difference between

social classes. It tells the story of someone growing up in the

working class. According to Lennon in an interview with Jann S.

Wenner of Rolling Stone in December 1970, it is about working

class individuals being processed into the middle classes, into

the machine.

The refrain of the song is "A working class hero is something to

be".

The song features only Lennon, singing and playing an

acoustic guitar as his backing. The chord progression is very

simple, and builds on A-minor and G-major, with a short detour

to D-major in one of the lines in the chorus. Lennon's strumming

technique includes a riff with a hammer-on pick of the E note

on the D string and then an open A string. The tone and style

of the song is similar to that of "Masters of War" and "North

Country Blues" by Bob Dylan, a known influence of Lennon.

Both are based on Jean Ritchie's arrangement of the traditional English folk song,

" Nottamun Town ." The recording is the composite of two different takes:

the sound of the

guitar and vocal changes at 1:24 prior to the verse "When they've tortured and scared

you." In 1973, US Representative Harley Orrin staggers heard the song — which includes

the lines "'Til you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules" and "But you're still

fucking peasants as far as I can see" — on WGTB and lodged a complaint with the

Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The manager of the station, Ken Sleeman,

faced a year in prison and a $10,000 fine, but defended his decision to play the song saying, "The People of Washington DC are sophisticated enough to accept the occasional four-letter word in context, and not become sexually aroused, offended, or upset." The charges were dropped. Other US radio stations, like Boston's WBCN, banned the song for its use of the word "fucking". In Australia, the album was released with the expletive removed from the song and the lyrics censored on the inner sleeve.

Working Class Hero is a 1995 tribute album to the Beatles singer/songwriter

John Lennon. It gets its name from a Lennon song of the same name. The album produced by Lindy Goetz, long time manager of the Red Hot Chili Peppers through Hollywood Records in support of the Humane Society of the United States. According to the back cover of the CD, "Fifty percent of artist royalties, producer royalties, and of Hollywood Records' net profits

from this album will be contributed to a dedicated fund administered by the Humane Society of the United States of America and will be used for spaying and neutering cats and dogs." APSA for the Humane society was released featuring the Chili Peppers to draw attention to the cause and the album.

"I Found Out" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

"I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier" - Mad

Season

"Steel and Glass" - Candlebox

"Imagine" - Blues Traveler

"Working Class Hero" - Screaming Trees

"Power to the People" - The Minus 5

"How Do You Sleep?" - The Magnificent

Bastards

"Nobody Told Me" - The Flaming Lips

"Well, Well, Well" - Super 8

"Cold Turkey" - Cheap Trick

"Jealous Guy" - Collective Soul

"Isolation" - Sponge

"Instant Karma!" - Toad the Wet Sprocket

"Grow Old with Me" - Mary Chapin

Carpenter

"Mind Games" - George Clinton

Working Class Hero:

The Definitive Lennon is a two-disc compilation of music by John Lennon, released in October 2005 on Capitol Records, catalogue CDP 0946 3 40391 2 3, in commemoration of what would have been his 65th birthday. The set contains remixed and remastered versions of his songs, overseen by widow Yoko Ono from 2000 to 2005:

The 38 assembled tracks span his entire solo career, and contain every Lennon song released as a single with the exception of the posthumous "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him", although not always the version or edit originally released as such. Representative tracks appear from all of his eight studio albums issued from 1970 to 1984, and the set contains all the songs featured on the previously released compilation

Lennon Legend and all but one from The John Lennon Collection, albeit at times in slightly different form. The bonus DVD included in Working Class Hero Deluxe Pack issued by EMI on 23 October 2008, is actually the Lennon Legend DVD.

Working Class Hero:

The Definitive Lennon was critically well-received upon its

release and reached number 11 in the United Kingdom. It fared relatively poorly

in the United States, debuting on the Billboard 200 album chart on 22 October

at number 135, spending only three weeks on the chart.

Disc 1

1. "(Just Like) Starting Over" Double Fantasy (1980) 3:56

2. "Imagine" Imagine (1971) 3:02

3. "Watching the Wheels" Double Fantasy (1980) 3:30

4. "Jealous Guy" Imagine (1971) 4:14

5. "Instant Karma!" Non-album single (1970) 3:20

6. "Stand by Me" (King/Leiber/Stoller) Rock 'n' Roll (1975) 3:26

7. "Working Class Hero" John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) 3:48

8. "Power to the People" Non-album single (1971) 3:22

9. "Oh My Love" (Lennon/Ono) Imagine (1971) 2:44

10. "Oh Yoko!" Imagine (1971) 4:18

11. "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)" Walls and Bridges

(1974) 5:07

12. "Nobody Told Me" Milk and Honey (1984) 3:34

13. "Bless You" Walls and Bridges (1974) 4:37

14. "Come Together" (Lennon/McCartney) Live in New York City (1986) 4:22

15. "New York City" Some Time in New York City (1972) 4:31

16. "I'm Stepping Out" Milk and Honey (1984) 4:06

17. "You Are Here" Mind Games (1973) 4:07

18. "Borrowed Time" Milk and Honey (1984) 4:29

19. "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" (Lennon/Ono) Non-album single (1971) 3:37

Disc 2

1. "Woman" Double Fantasy (1980) 3:33

2. "Mind Games" Mind Games (1973) 4:12

3. "Out the Blue" Mind Games (1973) 3:22

4. "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" Walls and Bridges (1974) 3:27

5. "Love" John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) 3:23

6. "Mother" John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) 5:34

7. "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" Double Fantasy (1980) 4:01

8. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" (Lennon/Ono) Some Time in New York

City (1972) 5:16

9. "God" John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) 4:09

10. "Scared" Walls and Bridges (1974) 4:36

11. "#9 Dream" Walls and Bridges (1974) 4:46

12. "I'm Losing You" John Lennon Anthology (1998) 3:55

13. "Isolation" John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) 2:51

14. "Cold Turkey" Non-album single (1969) 5:01

15 ."Intuition" Mind Games (1973) 3:08

16. "Gimme Some Truth" Imagine (1971) 3:15

17. "Give Peace a Chance" Non-album single (1969) 4:50

18. "Real Love" John Lennon Anthology (1998) 4:12

19. "Grow Old with Me" John Lennon Anthology (1998) 3:20

The working class (also labouring class and proletariat) are the people

employed for wages, especially in manual-labour occupations and in skilled,

industrial work.

Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some white-collar jobs, and

most service-work jobs. The working class only rely upon their earnings from

wage labour, thereby, the category includes most of the working population of

industrialized economies, of the urban areas (cities, towns, villages) of non-

industrialised economies, and of the rural workforce.

In Marxist theory and in socialist literature, the term working class usually is

synonymous and interchangeable with the term proletariat, and includes all

workers who expend either physical labour or mental labour (salaried knowledge workers and white-collar workers) to produce economic value for the owners of the means of production, the bourgeoisie. Since working-class wages can be very low, and because the state of unemployment is defined as a lack of independent means of generating an income and a lack wage-labour employment, the term working class also includes the lumpen-proletariat, unemployed people who are extremely poor.

As with many terms describing social class, working class is defined and used

in many different ways. The most general definition, used by Marxists and

socialists, is that the working class includes all those who have nothing to sell

but their labour-power and skills. In that sense it includes both white and blue-

collar workers, manual and mental workers of all types, excluding only

individuals who derive their income from business ownership and the labour of

others.

When used non-academically in the United States, however, it often refers to a

section of society dependent on physical labor, especially when compensated

with an hourly wage. For certain types of science, as well as less scientific or

journalistic political analysis, for example, the working class is loosely defined

as those without college degrees. Working-class occupations are then

categorized into four groups:

Unskilled laborers, artisans, outworkers, and factory

workers.

A common alternative, sometimes used in sociology, is to define class by

income levels. When this approach is used, the working class can be

contrasted with a so-called middle class on the basis of differential terms of

access to economic resources, education, cultural interests, and other goods

and services. The cut-off between working class and middle class here might

mean the line where a population has discretionary income, rather than simply

sustenance (for example, on fashion versus merely nutrition and shelter).

In feudal Europe, the working class as such did not exist in large numbers.

Instead, most people were part of the labouring class, a group made up of

different professions, trades and occupations. A lawyer, craftsman and peasant

were all considered to be part of the same social unit, a third estate of people

who were neither aristocrats nor church officials. Similar hierarchies existed

outside Europe in other pre-industrial societies. The social position of these

labouring classes was viewed as ordained by natural law and common religious

belief. This social position was contested, particularly by peasants, for example

during the German Peasants' War.

In the late 18th century, under the influence of the Enlightenment, European

society was in a state of change, and this change could not be reconciled with

the idea of a changeless god-created social order. Wealthy members of these

societies created ideologies which blamed many of the problems of working-

class people on their morals and ethics (i.e. excessive consumption of alcohol,

perceived laziness and inability to save money). In The Making of the English

Working Class , E.P.Thompson argues that the English working class was

present at its own creation, and seeks to describe the transformation of pre-

modern labouring classes into a modern, politically self-conscious, working

class.

Starting around 1917, a number of countries became ruled ostensibly in the

interests of the working class. Some historians have noted that a key change in these Soviet-style societies has been a massive a new type of proletarianization, often effected by the administratively achieved forced displacement of peasants and rural workers. Since then, four major industrial states have turned towards semi-market-based governance (China,

Laos, Vietnam, Cuba), and one state has turned inwards into an increasing cycle of poverty and brutalisation (North Korea). Other states of this sort have either collapsed (such as the Soviet Union), or never achieved significant levels of industrialisation or large working classes.

Since 1960, large-scale proletarianization and enclosure of commons has occurred in the third world, generating new working classes. Additionally, countries such as India have been slowly undergoing social change, expanding the size of the urban working class.

Karl Marx defined the working class or proletariat as individuals who sell their labour power for wages and who do not own the means of production. He argued that they were responsible for creating the wealth of a society. He asserted that the working class physically build bridges, craft furniture, grow food, and nurse children, but do not own land, or factories. A subsection of the proletariat, the lumpen-proletariat (rag-proletariat), are the extremely poor and unemployed, such as day labourers and homeless people.