John Lennon - working class prodigal. John Kenneth Galbraith.

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page 6 — Friday, May 7, 1971 — the colorado daily

John Lennon--working class prodigal

kids from Liverpool had gone just written a few new songs that has to be freed. For Lennon, the

The English cities of Liverpool,
Birmingham and Manchester are
primarily distinguished as work-
ing-class towns. The long bleak
rows of sober brick houses, the
few rooms of each stacked atop
one another to save space, are
individuated only by different
door numbers and sometimes
door colors. John Lennon grew up
in one of those houses.

The inhabitants soon develop a
sense of despair about their lives.
They work in the factories Marx
wrote of or the docks philoso-
phers have tried not to write of,
and they go home, they watch
“telly,” they dream, and someday
they die.

The horror of what life can be,
not as an infrequent spectacle, but
rather as a daily constant, is none
too inspiring a situation to pon-
der. And so the lives of the
inhabitants take to creating or
adopting illusions of a life outside
of the all-too-present reality:

Somewhere, one bleak morning,
on one of the days in the tenseless
history of such neighborhoods, a
boy or girl child of one of those
people left, and “made it.”” He, or
she, may not have had very usual
circumstances surrounding their
particular “success,” but to
dreamers that is incidental. If one
kid made it, the world holds the
same opportunity open to all. Life
is more than one’s reality requires;
life is made comfortable by
individual retreat. A small boy
named John Lennon was such a
dreamer.

Another form of ponderance
reverses these success stories.
Because, for every anonymous
“‘success,’’ millions were left in
the same situation, in fact often
imprisoned there by the dream of
following the hero. To. these
sO-pondering people the reason
why millions can not make it has
to be sought after and destroyed.
These people, too, have something
outside of their immediate reality
by which to define their lives.
But, for them, that “outside” is
the freeing of the already present
inner beauty of their fellow
tragics; making social and real
rather than individual and repres-
sed, the hopes of these people.

Both sentiments are born of a
sense of despair with the current
and the immediate — both reflect
a consciousness of the class
situation.

Or one of the above-mentioned
streets (Penny Lane was one),
John Lennon grew up. Due to
what the situation does to its

participants, John’s parents did
not have the best of personal lives.
He grew up hardly ever seeing
them. By the age of 10 he had
already grown out of the fetishism
with alcohol which many Ameri-
can college students begin at 18.

In his teens he met another
working-class kid; his name was
Paul McCartney. Together they
learned to play guitar, eventually
forming a group that played Elvis
Presley music. Playing in the dives
they would have hung out in
otherwise, their lives were not
very different.

Then, at the beginning of the
sixties, following a rapid succes-
sion of events, four working-class

“The idea is not to comfort people, not to make

from dreamers to the dream. They
weren’t even different— they
spoke like working people, they
proudly admitted they came from
Liverpool, but they were the new
heroes.

For their services to British
imperialism, for the huge success
at making the situation-produced
crime rate in Liverpool decline 50
per cent (lots more kids dream-
ing), they were awarded ‘Member
of the British Empire’ medals by
the Queen.

Now, ten years later, one of
those boys, who has. toured the
world, lived in luxury, owned
property, had all the luxuries, has





them feel better but to make them feel worse, to living wage.”’

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aren‘t quite the same.
For John Lennon, the dream ts
over. For John Lennon there is no
such thing as a “Working Class
Hero;” only working-class despair,
and working-class illusion — he
has been one.
Retracing his steps, Lennon, ina
recent interview with the English
socialist newspaper 7he Red Mole,
said that the rulers allow blacks
into entertainment and sports to
keep the blacks in their place, just
as they let a few working-class
people into entertainment to keep
the workers happy. But, he said,
not even the ones they let
“escape’’ get away, so everyone

humiliations they go through to get what they call a

ohn Lennon, Red Mole 8-22 March 1971.

streets of Liverpool stayed with
him, and he has realized that his
jaunt into world fame betrayed
the people who live in those
streets by holding a dream over
their heads.

And now, he sings, “the dream
is over’’ and “if you want to bea
hero, just follow me....” For;
what he and his class need is not
their own spectacle, but contro}
over their own lives, a contro}
Lennon found can never be
attained individually, in _ jso-
lation — but together.

It may seem like crass oppor-
tunism, but this is no rich kid
picking up a new idealism to sell
more records. This is the work-
ing-class son, the son who-has
spent his money, the son who
finished the booze solution at 10,
the son who tried religion, dope,
even being the dream, this is the
prodigal son coming full circle.
T.S. Eliot said “‘the end of all our
exploration shall be to arrive again
at the beginning and know the
place for the first time.’”” Lennon
has come home, singing ‘‘power to
the people, right on.’”” The people
are of Manchester, Birmingham,
Liverpool, and the power is not to
be a dream.

The album, simply entitled
“John Lennon,” clearly demon-
strates who the lyricist was on the
old Beatles songwriting team. The
album’s lyrics are a commanding
presentation of Lennon’s new
consciousness, while the music is
simple, almost incidental. In the
Red Mole, Lennon said folk songs
tell the story of the people. The
album is one of the real folk
songs. How long Lennon will sing
and tell interviewers of his dedica-
tion to struggling for his class is
yet to be seen. a

Unfortunately, the level of his
commitment will be measured in
the decline of his record sales.
Right now he has much political
growing to do, for his interviews
and this album are still safe, on
the peripheries of the struggles he
is seeking to join. Talking about
women’s liberation in songs will
not erase the fact that Yoko only
says a few words in their joint
interviews.

For the time being he is looking
down Penny Lane again and
trying to understand it. It was his
natural habitat, only he can prove
the dream is over for John
Lennon, and that he seeks to
liberate — not taunt— the in-
habitants.





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