John Lennon wasn’t known for his patience — especially when it came to making music that meant something. For him, a good take wasn’t just about hitting the right notes. It had to feel right. It had to be honest. Raw. Human. That emotional purity, though, often came at a cost — especially in the studio.
After years in The Beatles, where compromise and control were always battling for space, Lennon approached his solo career with a vengeance. He wanted full command of his message. And deep down, he couldn’t shake the suspicion that Paul McCartney had been quietly steamrolling his ideas for years. Whether or not that was true, it made him all the more obsessive about his own music — every note, every take, every syllable.
Even Lennon’s masterpieces couldn’t escape his inner critic. He’d famously dismiss songs like Strawberry Fields Forever and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds as half-baked or overproduced. He needed something different now — something stripped to the bone. That’s where Plastic Ono Band came in. And that’s where Working Class Hero pushed him to the edge.
Written after undergoing the emotional gauntlet of primal scream therapy, Working Class Hero wasn’t just another track — it was a catharsis. A protest. A confession. Lennon wanted it to sound like the truth. Just him, an acoustic guitar, and a brutal reflection of the class divisions in postwar Britain. Simple in theory. Torture in practice.
According to engineer Andy Stephens, those sessions were intense. Lennon wasn’t politely requesting headphone tweaks. He was erupting. “If the mix in his headphones wasn’t exactly what he wanted, he would take them off and slam them into the wall,” Stephens recalled. “He wouldn’t say, ‘Can I have a bit more guitar?’ He would literally rip the cans off his head and smash them into the wall, then walk out of the studio.”
This wasn’t rockstar tantrum territory. This was a man emotionally flayed, post-therapy, trying to channel years of trauma and rage into a single song — and unraveling every time something got in the way.
You can hear that tension in the final take. For most of the track, Lennon sings in a deadpan, almost numb tone. But then, near the very end, his voice cuts through with a crackling, sharp final note — like he’s trying to snap the guitar string with pure force. It’s not dramatic for drama’s sake — it’s the sound of a man barely keeping it together.
And while some listeners were shocked by the bluntness of lines like “you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see,” it wasn’t just the profanity that hit hard — it was the venom behind it. Lennon wasn’t just singing about oppression. He was oppressed. By fame. By his past. By the weight of meaning in every lyric.
Working Class Hero isn’t an easy listen — and it wasn’t an easy record to make. But in that chaos, that frustration, and yes, that smashed-up pair of headphones, Lennon found what he was looking for: the unfiltered truth.
