Working Class Hero

While glazing over this article in today's ET supplement, I came across these lines:

"There's room at the top, they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like all the folks on the hill"

Naturally, my interest was piqued, also because these lines were penned by John Lennon (which says a lot about me, the way I was influenced by who wrote this piece. But another time..). What clicked for me was the appropriateness of the lines to the article which talks of how people in high finance clutch on to the idea that they are doing good for the humanity, an essential service which can only be done by intellectually superior human beings. And they goad unsuspecting free souls and cage them, showing them pictures of a world of money and street & book smartness through rose tinted glasses.

But then I searched for the song and was blown away when I read the lyrics. That matches with my current state of mind a hundred percent! Right down to the disillusioned last line. I reproduce the lyrics here...


As soon as you're 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 class less 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

This rings true on many counts. Right from the illogical educational system we have, to the way we have structured our society. The schools, the colleges, the quest for degrees, for job security, for a hold over life itself, easily forgetting the overwhelming power that nature, and everything that is bound to it, has and which often waylays our most well laid out of plans.

The feeling I get nowadays, and a positive one at that, is that we should realize the power of the forces that make our world, that give us life, and death, and to not bother too much about the direction about things that can never be in our hands. After all, even love, or hatred, the two most powerful emotions that we are blessed with, aren't planned. 

And no, I am not talking of just God or religion. This power can be anything for us. For some it can be simply nature, with all its wisdom, while for others it could be Allah or Rahim. To each his own. But we should submit ourselves totally to the overwhelming power that drives this world. Make plans, for sure. But don't cry when they don't work out. And don't take yourself too seriously. Even Jupiter, much mightier than you or me, is a mere speck in front of the Sun. :-)

Comments

  1. Was quite frantic in search for the like button.. love the lyric.. wonder what he would have written today!

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  2. I don't think the lyrics would have changed much. Ring true to me for our times too !

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