Here’s a quarter-baked idea, but it’s a busy day and I want to get it out there while the gettin’s good. Remember when rock was concerned with authenticity? Remember when authentic rock titans the likes of John Lennon walked the earth, or at least hovered above it as if they were actually putting some wear on the soles of their shoes? I do.

I remember being about 14, catching up on my Beatles-infatuated boyhood to see where the band members’ solo years led: cool album tracks that I’d missed during my early years of puberty and my last dash of dreams of being a major league baseball player. I’d been reading those Lennon interviews in Playboy and Rolling Stone, really concentrating on every word the coolest and most authentic member of The Beatles uttered. I recall being very excited to hear “Working Class Hero”. This seemed like a song I could really sink my teeth into. This seemed like a song that would speak to the me I thought would be cool to be!

The first few times I heard the song I was disappointed. It was too slow. It “told” me rather than “showed” me. It sounded like folk music. It wanted to express anger, but I wasn’t feeling much of it. To this day I still find “Working Class Hero” a boring song. But Lord knows it strove for authenticity and grappled with issues of serving The People. Continue reading »