Working Class Hero (Remastered 2010)
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Provided to YouTube by Universal Music GroupWorking Class Hero (Remastered 2010) · John LennonPlastic Ono Band℗ 2010 Calderstone Productions Limited (a divis...

I was reading this article from 1970 and he’s obviously a complicated dude: https://archive.is/POtvB

The lyrics are a little haunting and I’ve never heard it before.

  • Uglyhead@lemmy.worldEnglish
    479·
    7 months ago

    “It’s really just revolutionary. I think its concept is revolutionary, and I hope it’s for workers and not for tarts and fags.”

    —John Lennon

    I forget just how much of a bigot and gay basher Lennon was.

    • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
      193·
      7 months ago

      I heard the argument the other day telling me to separate art from the artist.

      My singular response was “yeah, and I like Trapped In The Closet too, but R Kelly pissed on a 13 year old girl he later married. I can’t listen to any of his music and not have that in the back of my mind. If you can stomach the song while thinking about that, the song must be pretty good or the travesty not that bad that you can push it out”

      Loved Eric Clapton, read what he said about Hendrix and his own family and then the vaccine stuff in recent years resurfaced it. No more Clapton

      • Uglyhead@lemmy.worldEnglish
        61·
        7 months ago

        I mean yeah, Chuck Berry used to fart on women’s faces while they were tossing his salad without consent as well, and that’s pretty fucked up. But reading the descriptions of the videos of R Kelly pissing on minors faces was just way way fucked up. Wouldn’t be able to listen to any song without thinking of all the fucked up things he’s done to other people.

        • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          72·
          7 months ago

          Yeah there are definitely levels. Louis C.K. makes me feel weird, I think he’s funny and I think what he did was wrong but not on the level of R. Kelly or actual sexual criminals. Then the R Kelly stuff happens and it makes you re-evaluate the entire Leaderboard of ‘fucked up celebrity shit’.

      • acockworkorange@mander.xyzEnglish
        2·
        7 months ago

        I always took it as more of a “I enjoy the art, don’t know what’s going on in the artist’s life” kinda of deal. There’s plenty of people who don’t want to hear a thing about any artist’s personal life or opinion. And it’s not fair to condemn someone that’s enjoying some art because they don’t care to keep up with the joneses.

    • fathog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      711·
      7 months ago

      Easy to throw stones in 2023. That seems horrid now, of course, but homosexuality was literally criminalized in the UK in the 60s - the same time period where they had a gay manager. Look into the sexual tension/love affair between Epstein (Brian, not Jeffrey) and Lennon. Dude was genuinely progressive for the times (over half a fucking century ago, y’all) and to shape that as bigotry is borderline misinformation.

      Rag on him for beating his wife, not this silly shit

      Edit: here’s some actual context about this notorious “bigot”. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/john-lennon-the-beatles-song-defend-brian-esptein-sexuality/

      • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        84·
        7 months ago

        Rag on him for both.

        “Acceptable of the time” isn’t a valid excuse against bigotry. There’s a differenc between thinking something is criminal but having no moral objection to it, you know, like drugs and free love and everything else their music talks about, and thinking something is criminal and that there is a moral attachment to that act.

        There were people in the 60s/70s/80s that wouldn’t write a workers rights song and say “keep it away from fags and girly men though”, because they’re not self-dillusioned assholes, John Lennon just didn’t happen to be one.