SANDINISTA NOW!
A working class hero is something to be" John Lennon sang that. He wasn’t, course, he was an observer—a thinker. His songs a record of his thoughts. Yet by the same token perhaps he was very much that, both by background and by action— challenging the old order actively—“The War Is Over.”
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
Penny Valentine
SANDINISTA NOW!
A working class hero is something to be" John Lennon sang that. He wasn’t, course, he was an observer—a thinker. His songs a record of his thoughts. Yet by the same token perhaps he was very much that, both by background and by action— challenging the old order actively—“The War Is Over.” Way before JacksOn Browne sniffled into his kleenex about male sacrifices Lennon was unself-pitying exploring sexual politics. Yoko brought to him feminism and he was confused by it.. Through songs he raised his own contradictions. By doing that he faced us—male and female alike—with ours. We all listened, accepting and rejecting as we liked. Music is powerful. We take in its messages and sift them about in our brain, however subconsciously. Whether anything but personal experience makes us change the way we think is another matter.
Lennon interviewed. “Look at it this way,” he said. The Clash continue to do so. “A working class hero is something to be” Joe Strummer still has a touch of that about him: “And you’re minding your own business/Carring spare change/You wouldn’t cosh a barber /You’re hungry all the same/