h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Even now, it still makes me upset and angry that John Lennon was taken from us so cruelly. He died in the year I was born, so I've always grown up with that. I love the Beatles and his solo/Plastic Ono Band work, he was a true genius. A legend in his own lifetime.

I wholehearedly agree. He has been dead for my entire life, yet I still can't quite comprehend it. His death is an amazing loss for the world.

All we can do now is help his music live on. Educate people on the fact that music can change your life (Lennon being a prime example) and the fact that there is more to life than 'so-called' dance music.

As I read this, they're playing Lennon in the internet cafe

He's really inspired me in so many ways; thanks to him I decided for sure I was a leftie, and I'm off to Faslane next Monday. Power to the people!

Power to the people right now!

I do a request show on hospital radio, and one of the patients requested Imagine. Looking at the B-side, Working Class Hero, I noticed that it had been labelled 'Banned'. Too subversive for the patients, it seems.

WHAT? That's ludicrous!
How old was the record itself?

"I do a request show on hospital radio, and one of the patients requested Imagine. Looking at the B-side, Working Class Hero, I noticed that it had been labelled 'Banned'. Too subversive for the patients, it seems."

Perhaps they were worried that the audacity of middle-class millionaire Lennon gassing on about "a working-class hero is something to be" would send some of the patients blood-pressures up.

"Middle-class millionaire"?
It's hardly as if he was born into a fortune, was it? He made it by bringing us some of the most outstanding songs of our time! He is a working class hero.

The powers that be get very touchy with some records, but hey - although Stairway to Heaven is technically "banned" if someone requests it we have to play it...

I think WCH is banned because it's so subversive, although the official line is that we can't play anything that goes on about a "pain that's so big you feel nothing at all"....

No, but he was born into the middle classes. This is irrelevant really because in the song John Lennon is saying a Working Class Hero is something worth being. To many working class people, usually the ones in struggle and fighting back against the system that exploits them, he became a working class hero. To many others, he was just some rich hippy who knew and understood little about the day to day struggles faced by working people. There are lots of 'heroes' who figure strongly in the struggles and traditions of the working class, who were not born into the working class. A working class hero is something to be. A working class hero is something you EARN the right to become. Simply being working class is not enough. Personally, i can't decide if John Lennon is one or not. If there's anyone out there who wants to convince me one way or t'other, feel free.

John did indeed come from a working class family, as I'm sure his aunt Mimi would confirm It was Paul who was the middle-classer - Paul's dad, being a well-to-do banker or such asked Paul to change the lyrics Yeah Yeah Yeah in She Loves you to Yes, Yes, Yes because it was more polite

He wasn't very working-class when he wrote all that love and peace and no possessions stuff though, was he? His house certainly wasn't. Or his hair.

I do have a problem with people who preach against wealth or tick off materialism from the position of living in comfort and with the GNP of Poland in the bank.

Did someone say Michael Moore?

I heard a rumour that Lennon was also a Conservative voter but it *was* in a broadsheet article (and they are notoriously ill-informed), can anyone elaborate?

Sorry about that, you're right John Lennon did come from a working class family. What i meant to say was - No, but even if he was born into the middle classes, this would be irrelevant...

Jagged Jack

Yeah, and if you won the lottery you wouldn't set youself up for life, Zagreb?

Alright, the man had a lovely house and all the rest of it - but he worked bloody hard for it and championed a hell of a lot of causes and raised a lot of awareness for what he believed in.

Still grudge him the luxury lifestyle? Cos I don't.

"Yeah, and if you won the lottery you wouldn't set youself up for life, Zagreb?"

Of course I would, but I wouldn't start thinking I could solve all the world's problems by wearing a white suit, growing my hair and marrying an "eccentric" Japanese lady.

"Alright, the man had a lovely house and all the rest of it - but he worked bloody hard for it and championed a hell of a lot of causes and raised a lot of awareness for what he believed in.

Still grudge him the luxury lifestyle? Cos I don't."

I don't begrudge him anything. I just think he was a good musician and lyricist who wrote some great tunes who suddenly started kidding himself that the world would be a better place if, like, we all just learned to be friends and that and sat in bed holding a sign saying "hair peace" and that he was some new-Jesus who needed to spread this message. He was an artist who pretended he understood the root of all the world's problems and had a simple solution to them. As for raising awareness and championing causes, what did he do? He was against the Vietnam war, but then so was everyone except Richard Nixon, the Communist Party of North Vietnam and John Wayne. Half the world was raising awareness about that and looking a lot less silly while they did so. Apart from that I can't think of any political or moral movement that owes it's popularity/awareness to John Lennon. Unlike, say, Special AKA with "Free Nelson Mandella" or (more recently) Asian Dub Foundation's "Free Satpal Ram".

I don't have the slightest problem with Lennon the artist. THe stuff he did with the Beatles and much of the solo stuff (like Instant Karma) is bloody great. What I do have a problem with it "Lennon the prophet of peace and love who made the world a better place and had governments living in fear". I'm just not convinced that person ever really existed.

Zag