I heard Green Day’s version of this song on WCOM today. Got me thinking about John Lennon… A working class hero REALLY is something to be!
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,
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,
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,
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 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 folks 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,
If you want to be a hero well just follow me.
Brian C. Russell 
Brian:
Thanks. I hadn't heard this song in years, jogged some memories. We do need another working class hero.
Bharat
Hi Brian,
Had a hard drive death so am rebuilding address book, and your blog seemed like one place to find yours. I'm now registered to comment.
The reason someone would play "Working Class Hero" today is that it's the 27th anniversary of the assassination. I was living in the NC mountains then, and one of my small circle of friends (now in west Durham) said that she might have support the death penalty for one person — Mark Chapman. I thought about that today at the ProgDems meeting because there was some discussion of the issue. One Lt. Gov. candidate had answered their questionnaire ambiguously on the death penalty — Pat Smathers. My man Dan Besse got the endorsement for the May primary.
Weird. I had completely forgotten that the anniversary of Lennon's murder was December 8!