Of all the adjectives used to describe John Lennon during his time in The Beatles, ‘perfectionist’ isn’t generally at the top of most people’s lists. As Lennon started in the Fab Four, his willingness to write melodies was always rivalled by his need to experiment, creating art-fueled recordings that benefited from sounding as raw as possible under the right circumstances. When it came time to move on to his solo career, though, Lennon made a point to make sure one song was exactly how he wanted it to be.
Then again, it’s not like Lennon wasn’t keen to make the perfect take if the time called for it. When going over tracks like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, Lennon made sure that every element of the song was what he heard in his head, down to taking completely different takes of music in different keys and blending them seamlessly.
At the same time, Paul McCartney’s need to get everything right on the final tape didn’t suit Lennon’s mentality. Since McCartney would usually have a vision for what a song was supposed to be during the back half of The Beatles’ career, most of his time would be spent playing a song repeatedly in the studio before getting the right take, which sent Lennon crazy on tracks like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’.
Once the band split up, though, Lennon wasn’t ready to jump into his solo career just yet. After going through an emotionally devastating split from his bandmates, Lennon had a lot of emotion to work out when he underwent primal scream therapy. Taking himself apart regarding his emotional issues, much of his solo debut, Plastic Ono Band, became a reflection of the problems that he was having, renouncing his old band on ‘God’ and making peace with his abandonment issues on the ‘Mother’.
When writing about the state of the world, Lennon cut to the core of modern working-class issues in ‘Working Class Hero’. Featuring only Lennon on guitar and vocals, the track is one of the most chilling songs in his solo catalogue, talking ominously about the struggles of the everyman and including one of the first times Lennon even used profanity in his lyrics.
While the song would evoke that chilling atmosphere Lennon was going for, it wouldn’t be easy getting there. According to tape operator Andy Stephens, Lennon was known to lash out angrily when the song wasn’t coming together, saying, “If the mix in his headphones wasn’t exactly what he wanted, he would take them off and slam them into the wall. He wouldn’t say, ‘Can I have a bit more guitar?’ He would literally rip the cans off his head and smash them into the wall, then walk out of the studio. [We made] an endless number of takes… well over 100.. Probably 120, 130”.
Despite the painstaking recording sessions, ‘Working Class Hero’ became an accurate portrayal of what Lennon’s life outside of therapy was like, sounding like a man coming back down to Earth and realising all the problems that he still had to face as an average human being. While Lennon may have never been able to outrun his reputation as a Beatle, ‘Working Class Hero’ is him showing his audience that he was still a person underneath those wire-rimmed glasses.
