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Working Class Hero Song Meaning ( See Actual Lyrics)
To Begin, Two Stories: What Does it Mean to be Working Class?
On the surface, "Working Class Hero" tells the grim story of life as a member of the working class. To get to the deeper meaning of the song, you have to have an understanding of what this means. "Working class" is a very complicated term, as it doesn't just refer to a person's occupation and economic status, but also to their education and culture.
The term can be used very negatively; in the sense of referring to people who are "low class." BUT it is also a term that is used with pride by those who identify as working class (what is generally referred to in the U.S. as "middle class"). Many people, like the members of the Beatles and of Green Day, are proud to come from a background of laborers and from low-income communities.
Either way, being "working class," especially in Great Britain in Lennon's day, was something you couldn't really escape from. Even if you "got out" and went to university, got a degree and a good job, you could still be derided as "working class" by the upper classes forever.
Story #1: The Working Class Life Story
Classism, like racism and sexism, is not about what you make of yourself, but what you're born into, as Lennon describes in the first verse of the song: "As soon as your born they make you feel small."
The next verse of the song describes the next phase of your life, which is going to school, and if you're working class, it's probably a poor school, the kids from the rich neighborhoods and private schools make fun of you, and the system is designed not just to bring you down, but to keep you down, "Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules," as Lennon puts it.
Once you finish school, of course, it's time "to pick a career." But really, "you're so full of fear," that you just fall into the roll that you've been assigned by your class at birth. There were never really any options or choices available to you.
This verse describes the essence of a classed, industrial-materialist (read: capitalist) society. Everybody's trapped in their socially designated roles and there's no way out. Of course, you could, as Lennon suggests in many other songs, start a revolution, but nobody does this because they "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."
This refers to the core of what perpetuates class oppression. People that are born into the so-called "lower classes" work really hard for very small amounts of money, but they do manage to earn just enough money to buy the very cheap products of this industrial-materialist society (i.e. simulated sex and salvation). These material things act to sedate and brainwash everyone into thinking life is just fine, even when it's fucked.
The icing on the poison cake that keeps us stupefied and enslaved to the capitalist monster is referred to in the last verse of the song: "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 folks on the hill."
Story #2: The Fairy Tale that Promises Something Better
The line, "the folks on the hill," evokes, as does the line "you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see," the reality that although we've supposedly evolved into a democratic and "classless" society, nothing has actually changed since feudal times.
Classed societies have always been built around the paradigm of the king in his castle "on the hill," and all the peasants, or serfs, eking out a meager existence in the valley below. This is where the term upper and lower classes comes from, and it hasn't changed all that much to this day. Just think of Hurricane Katrina, where all the rich people were safe from the flooding because they lived at higher elevations, and the poor people suffered and died in the low lands.
Now, the idea that "There's room at the top they are telling you still" is a very basic version of the oldest story in the book, you know the one, where the peasant becomes the king. Since ancient times, this has been the greatest and most consistent lie perpetuated by those in power to convince everyone that their lives can get better, and that they might, if they work hard enough and stay in line, someday "be like the folks on the hill." The punchline to this whole classist joke is that really, you never get to top, but the stories of success keep you believing.
The Beatles: Living the Dream, Being the Hero
This song was written at a time when communist uprisings were occurring all over the world (i.e. Maoist China, Marxist-Leninist Cuba). At the same time, people were becoming very disillusioned with the "hippie" movement, because it had turned into more of a revolution in style than in government.
Lennon, for his part, was disillusioned with the whole world of the Beatles. This is partly because the Beatles became one of these "peasant to king" stories that the establishment so loves to hold up as proof that anyone can make it to the top.
When the Beatles started, they were just four kids from Liverpool, which was a working class borough of England. When they got famous, suddenly it seemed like wealth and fame was at the tip of everyone's fingers. And not only that, but they made it stylish to be working class. For example, the Liverpudlian accent that they used had always been considered a "lower class" English accent, but when the Beatles became popular, suddenly everyone was using the accent.
As the Beatles got more and more famous, Lennon started to ask himself, "is this all there is?" He was rolling in material wealth, but he was miserable. He was also making what was, however edgy and new, still basically pop music. Laying his politics on the table about the Vietnam War and communism and the like was a major no-no. It was for these reasons, among others, that he eventually quit the Beatles to pursue a solo career, producing the album "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," and the song "Working Class Hero."
So, What is a Working Class Hero?
Knowing this background about Lennon and the Beatles should give you a pretty good idea about the answer to this question. Basically, a working class hero is someone that has been permitted to "break though" by those who control society, in order to give the average laborer the sense that s/he, too, could someday improve his or her life by becoming rich and famous. People like John Lennon become not only heroes, but idolized symbols of the better life waiting just around the corner.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in the U.S. today. In ghettos all over the country, poor black kids look up to rappers and basketball players, and see these futures as their way to get out of the ghetto and improve their lives. Today, the working class hero has become the ghetto superstar. Both terms, of course, are meant in a sarcastic sense. Neither of these are actually great things to do with your life, but they are "something to be" for all those who would otherwise feel hopeless about the future.
When asked in an interview about becoming famous, Lennon had this to say: "At the time it was thought that the workers had broken through, but I realize in retrospect that it's the same phony deal they gave the blacks, it was just like they allowed blacks to be runners or boxers or entertainers. That's the choice they allow you - now the outlet is being a pop star, which is really what I'm saying on the album in 'Working class hero.'"
The message that Lennon was trying to put across is that we can't use wealth and fame and the dream of being a king among kings to escape the oppression of our capitalist society. We have to reject material wealth and reprioritize our lives to focus on what is really important: love, family, peace, spiritual and intellectual growth.
Green Day: The Working Class Hero Evolves
Skip ahead now, almost 40 years, to Green Day covering this song to help fund relief for the genocide occurring in Darfur. This reason for doing the cover, and the video that Sam Bayer put together to accompany it, repositions the song to give it a different meaning.
When asked why they chose the song, Billie Joe has been quoted as saying: "We wanted to do 'Working Class Hero' because its themes of alienation, class, and social status really resonated with us. It's such a raw, aggressive song -- just that line: 'you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see' -- we felt we could really sink our teeth into it. I hope we've done him justice."
"Justice" is an interesting word for Billie Joe to use in this case, as by recreating "Working Class Hero" in such a different context, Green Day has almost rewritten a classic song that already came with a very important message.
A New Meaning Emerges
Now, when the listener catches bits of lyric like "you're so full of fear," and "learn to smile as you kill," it's easy to leap to issues of war and peace and the whole situation in Darfur. This in itself is not necessarily problematic, and Lennon was very opposed to war, and always hoped that his songs could become modern anti-war anthems.
However, the issue of lyric meaning does get complicated during the chorus: "A working class hero is something to be." Lennon meant this sarcastically, as in "a working class hero is something to aspire to, to keep you going throughout the robotic drudgery that is your existence."
Conversely, in the Green Day version of the song, because it resonates with the politics of war, the use of the term "hero," seems to speak of actually heroism, as in "a working class person can be a hero just by being anti-war and rising up against oppression and shouldn't we all find ways to be heroes in our own lives?"
For those who are familiar with Green Day history, this meaning is particularly resonant, since Billie Joe has often been quoted as saying he is proud of his working class background. From this, it becomes easy to see the heroism inherent in simply being from the working or middle class. Thusly, being a "working class hero" becomes a good thing, which is not what Lennon intended.
The Message Remains the Same
However, the meaning of a song isn't simply what the author intends, it's also what listeners and reproducers of the song create through their participation, as the song is played and heard over and over again. From this perspective, the second layer of meaning that has now been added to the song by the Green Day cover can be considered equally valid.
And all things being equal, it must be noted that both interpretations of the song create a similar message, which is that in general, we are brainwashed into inaction by our way of life in the Western World. This leads to a lot of bad things happening. We've got to snap out of it and fight for change, or the world is always going to be a shitty, fucked-up place. This remains true whether you're talking about breaking the cyclical and doomed narrative of working class hero-worship, or about how every individual is capable of heroism because of their ability to choose and create change.
And in the End…
The Green Day version of this song, like the Lennon original, ends with John Lennon singing, "If you want to be a hero than just follow me / If you want to be a hero than just follow me." The question is: did Lennon mean this sarcastically, or not?
If Lennon is referring to his rise to fame with the Beatles, which he views negatively, then it can be understood in a sarcastic sense, and no one should follow, or want to follow him, or anybody else.
Conversely, if Lennon is referring to his current situation, in which he's rejected materialism and is living the life he wants to live, then the message can be understood seriously, in the sense that if the average person truly wants to do something heroic, they should break out the torpor and rags-to-riches dreaming that is currently keeping them enslaved within the military-industrial complex.
Something Like Hopefulness
By leaving Lennon the last word on their cover of this song, Green Day seems to be pointing to this second meaning, and this, in turn, points to hope. Hope, like justice, is a funny word, and a funny concept. Both are seen too little in this world, but without a belief in both, we are, all of us, truly trapped in a world that is not of our creation, and from which we have little chance of escape.
With "Working Class Hero," both Lennon and Green Day are calling us out, inviting us to set ourselves on a different path, one that leads to freedom of thought and action. The justice of this song lies in its appropriately, ambiguously hopeful conclusion, "if you want to be a hero than just follow me / If you want to be a hero than just follow me."
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