Fab Foundations # 31: “Here’s a Twist: Plastic Props”

(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)

Song: “Working Class Hero”

Album: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

Release Date: December 1970

In 1987 Rolling Stone magazine celebrated its 20^th anniversary with 4 special issues. The boldest and finest of these was the first: “The 100 Best Albums of the Last 20 Years”. From what I’ve researched, it was one of the first times any music-centric publication had ever attempted such a thing and would set a precedent for record retrospectives (and other retrospectives for that matter) that continues to this day.

Throughout the 80s, I read Rolling Stone religiously, from cover to cover (a crate or two of issues from that period still resides in my basement). Needless to say, I sucked this special issue up. It had a huge influence on me, affirming many of my own declarations regarding superb albums (the only thing I was miffed by was that Quadrophenia was not included in the canon). Better still, it introduced me to some great music from musicians I knew little to nothing about (including Richard & Linda Thompson, Graham Parker, and the Modern Lovers) as well as a handful of musicians/bands whom I’d already connected with to some degree, but still had a steep learning curve to round out my understanding of their significant contributions to the music world (for example, several of Randy Newman’s discs that had previously slipped my attention). Each album had a nice writeup explaining the reasoning behind its inclusion and its hierarchical position. It was all very classily done.

I recall now my being quite methodical in how I approached that magazine the day it arrived in my mailbox. There would be no rapid-fire page turning to see what made this special list and what did not. Instead, I treated each page as if it were made of gold leaf, examining every detail and then turning ever-so carefully. I liked how Rolling Stone approached the list by starting at #1 and working down to #100, instead of the other way around. Usually it’s better to “build up” to # 1, but here it worked the opposite because this was a very exclusive list, and so, starting at #1, you would get the overall gist of the concept right out of the gate. It was a concept that would not lose its luster all the way through to #100 (T. Rex’s Electric Warrior).

#1 you ask? None other than the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. No surprise there, particularly if you’d been sucking in rock music back in the 70s and 80s as much as I had, which included faithfully tuning into “underground” rock radio stations such as WBCN on a regular basis. The writeup made a very good case though, and I generally agreed with the choice. However, if things continued along this “classic rock” trajectory, I would have been disappointed.

It did not.

Coming in at #2 was the Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bullocks. Wow! Ok, now this was suddenly getting very interesting. I began to understand that the formula being used by Rolling Stone was not so much about a popularity contest, nor was it strictly about staying power. Factoring into the formula were alternative albums that had the greatest effect on the music world at the time of their release. The writeup on Johnny Rotten and his fellow punks was spot on.

The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street came in at #3. I was already a big Stones fan in those years but had not yet sunk my teeth into this incredible album, and so I was very curious. The insightful commentary fueled that curiosity. By the time I wrote my Stepping Stones blog series in 2012, I would fully understand why this all-time-best Stones album had been given such a lofty position (entry #17 of my Stepping Stones series explains how I became enlightened). Yes, an excellent choice.

Having tackled the top 3, I turned to the next page to see what #4 was, which ended up being the most pleasant surprise in that entire afternoon of page turning: John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band; Lennon’s first solo album after the Beatles break up. At that stage, I remember thinking that Rolling Stone must have put a lot of thought, effort, and coordination into this list. Plastic Ono Band would top the Beatles “White Album” (# 9), Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (# 10), Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (# 12), and the Who’s Who’s Next (# 22). It would come ahead of many other fantastic choices too, as well as many that did not make the cut. During the months prior, in anticipation for the arrival of this special-issue retrospective, I wanted the list to include gems that the radio had not quite figured out yet. Clearly this was what was playing out.

Why did Plastic Ono Band get so highly ranked? I’m not going to try to resurrect that special Rolling Stone issue at this time to help me answer that question (although I know where it is). Instead I’m going to rely on the insights that I arrived at this week as I listened, which of course includes flashbacks from having played this album frequently in those bygone years (after all, flashing back is what this overarching Music and Memory blog site is all about).

Plastic Ono Band is one of the starkest albums I have ever heard, which goes a long way to help explaining Rolling Stone’s recognition of it. It lays out bare-naked John Lennon’s painfilled emotions at the time (the word “pain” is used in 5 of 11 songs on the album and could easily have been used in several others). Those troublesome emotions hit on a range of topics, particularly in relation to Lennon’s being robbed of a childhood through death (his Mom) and abandonment (both his parents). It’s a therapy album (“primal scream therapy” to be precise), and we all get to hear the patient bare his soul.

The album starts off with 4 tolls of a funeral bell, before John Lennon launches into the gut-wrenching (yet, magnificent) song, “Mother”, whereby he proceeds to say goodbye to her. In other words, “I’m done”. The album rarely lets up from there. “Isolation” could just as easily have been titled “Ostracization” …as in…’Yeah, well that’s what you get for going out on a limb with these hippie-like dreams of peace and harmony, and in the process abandoning your Fab persona’ (generic establishment voices speaking there). The song “Well Well Well” is the most difficult on the album to listen to emotionally, Lennon crying out in childlike agony as he grapples with a world closing in on him.  One song after another takes on these themes of isolation, abandonment, and pain (the only real bright spot is the song “Love” which has the feel of therapeutic success).

The most melodic song on the album, “God”, is also the most jaded; John Lennon disassociating himself from just about everything, including Christianity, I-Ching, Buddha, Elvis, Zimmerman (Bob Dylan), the Queen of England, you name it. In the end, the only thing left is “Yoko and me”. The lashing out in the song culminates with “I don’t believe in Beatles!”. I knew when I first heard those lyrics that the subsequent line in the song, “the dream is over” (of a Beatles reunion ever happening), was a reality. The affirmation was so clear. For John Lennon it was all part of the therapeutic process, but for many Beatles fans it was a very cold shower indeed (which must have also been the case for Paul McCartney when he first heard it).

John Lennon clearly felt isolated at that time, but what he may not have realized was that a new generation of 70s kids (like me) were hearing him out, impressed by his courage and conviction in the face of intense adversity. I may not have been fully on board (particularly in relation to his lashing out at established Christianity), but I was there, man. I mean, if there was ever someone in a position to do so, here was a guy who could rest on his laurels. He’d conquered the world in the previous decade for goodness sakes! But he stuck with his artistic self – his true self – in order to stay on his personal path of wisdom. Who knows how it would have played out for John Lennon had he lived beyond the age of 40? The dust was already settling down for him by 1980 (when he was murdered).  I’d like to think that by facing his fears and traumas head on with Plastic Ono Band and other projects (including his second solo album, Imagine), that he would eventually come around to believing again in some of the good things he was then condemning.

It’s funny, but when I listened as a kid, songs like “God”, “Mother”, and “Isolation” were more about the quality of the music than they were about the pain of lyrics (although both factored into why I was so enthused to see that #4 recognition in Rolling Stone all those years ago). I’m willing to hear others out on this next point, but when it comes to an album like Plastic Ono Band, my thinking is that when you are in your formative years, your ears are more attuned to quality (the music) than the thoughts being conveyed through the lyrics, particularly if you have been blessed to have retained your youthful innocence up to that given point. Conversely, when I listen now to Plastic Ono Band, I connect more with the pain of the lyrics than I do with the quality of the music (although my life has been relatively wonderful) and so the songs tend to sound a bit more jarring.

The penultimate song on Plastic Ono Band is “Working Class Hero”, which fits right in with the general theme of the album, and maybe even defines it. The song (about the trappings of falling in line to the whims of the powers that be) is loaded with classic lines, but the one that draws me in the most is “They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool”.  I’d like to think that on the occasion when I’ve been put in that position - when my uniqueness has been challenged – that more often than not I’ve dealt with it appropriately.

The one line I’ve always struggled with in “Working Class Hero” is the one John Lennon uses to close the song: “If you want to be a hero, well just follow me”.  After all, isn’t that the type of thing that Lennon advises against in “God”? The lyrical line had a touch of hypocrisy about it. Well (well well), whaddaya know, this week I stumbled across the official video for “Working Class Hero”, which was not released until 2016. Check it out if you can because it’s a work of art ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMewtlmkV6c ). Along with several other ‘modernized’ Beatles-related videos (including one for “Here Comes the Sun” and another for “What is Life”), this one is incredibly well-constructed.

Anyhow, if you watch, note the “Strawberry Fields” visuals at the beginning and ending (John Lennon’s escape from reality locale when he was growing up in Liverpool). These visuals align with the lyrics, particularly the ending with those aforementioned closing lines I was struggling with. The point is clear: Run with your childhood imagination. It will take you to glorious places that an overly-structured world could never hope to accomplish. Nicely done! In one fell swoop, my jadedness to those lines disappeared.

That same imagination was there for me on that thought-provoking day in the summer of 1987 when I slipped that special-issue of Rolling Stone magazine out of my mailbox. I was hoping my imagination would be satiated with imagination and insight in those pages. Rolling Stone did not disappoint. In turn, John Lennon did not disappoint them.

- Pete