Working Class Heroes: A Beatles Album from 1971

Almost a year ago, I published a post on my attempts to assemble Beatles albums for the 1970s. As noted there, I started the project several years ago and put together several albums, though only one is covered in the post. In fact I put together a total of six albums, covering 1970 to early 1975, with a tentative track listing for a seventh. One reason I haven't posted the others here yet is I am considering redoing some of them. For example, I would like to switch a pair of tracks from the second and third albums, putting "I Found Out" on the second one and "It's So Hard" on the third. On some of the later ones I may reconsider one or two choices here and there, and I'd also like to do more albums, perhaps taking some of the suggestions in Jeff Walker's book on the same theme into consideration, though I still prefer my format to his. But I haven't gotten around to any of those things yet, so for now I'm just posting the original version of the second album (titled Working Class Heroes) and the accompanying liner notes.

Working Class Heroes

01 Working Class Hero (Lennon) 3:50
02 Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (McCartney/McCartney) 4:48
03 Wah-Wah (Harrison) 5:35
04 Mother (Lennon) 3:55
05 Too Many People (McCartney) 4:09
06 It's So Hard (Lennon) 2:29
07 Beware Of Darkness (Harrison) 3:48
08 Heart Of The Country (McCartney/McCartney) 2:23
09 Love (Lennon) 3:24
10 Not Guilty (Harrison) 3:22
11 Early 1970 (Starkey) 2:20
12 Power To The People (Lennon) 3:19
13 The Back Seat Of My Car (McCartney) 4:27

Total Time - 47:49/47:38

Working Class Hero
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1970/09-10; Released 1970/12/11
From Plastic Ono Band

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
Written and Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01-03; Released 1971/05/17
From Ram

Wah-Wah
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass

Mother
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1970/09-10; Released 1970/12/11
From Plastic Ono Band

Too Many People
Written by Paul McCartney; Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01-03; Released 1971/05/17
From Ram

It's So Hard
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine

Beware Of Darkness
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass

Heart Of The Country
Written and Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01-03; Released 1971/05/17
From Ram

Love
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1970/09-10; Released 1970/12/11
From Plastic Ono Band

Not Guilty
Written by George Harrison; Performed by the Beatles
Guitar and Vocals: George Harrison
Guitar: John Lennon
Bass: Paul McCartney
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1968/08/08-12
From Anthology 3

Early 1970
Written and Performed by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr)
Recorded 1970/06/30-07/01; Released 1971/04/09
Guitar and Piano: George Harrison
Single (B-side of "It Don't Come Easy")

Power To The People
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1971/01/22; Released 1971/03/08
Single

The Back Seat Of My Car
Written by Paul McCartney; Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01-03; Released 1971/05/17
From Ram

Working Class Heroes is my effort at putting together a Beatles album for fall of 1971. The general principles I was going by were the same for this album as for the previous one, What Is Life. Again there was actually a wealth of material to choose from, so the hardest part was deciding what songs to leave off.

Most of John's songs come off of his first proper solo album (ignoring the experimental albums he did with Yoko) Plastic Ono Band. This is one of the most personal, soul-bearing albums ever put out by a singer-songwriter, and is worth hearing in its entirety. However, with the three songs appearing here, together with "God" on What Is Life, you get some of the strongest tracks from the album. "Working Class Hero", though at the time it probably got more attention for one particular lyric than anything else, is a powerful tribute to the laboring class. "Mother" (which here is not the album version but the slightly shorter edit that appeared as a single [actually the YouTube video which I have linked to is the album version]) is perhaps John's most personal song. "Love" is a simple song in the same thematic vein as his "All You Need Is Love". Also appearing here is "It's So Hard" from John's following album Imagine, and "Power To The People", which appeared as a single between Plastic Ono Band and Imagine (it now appears on the Plastic Ono Band CD). George Martin once said it was a not-so-great rehash of "Give Peace A Chance", but while I can see his point, I think it's not too bad, and as it's also one of John's better-known solo tracks, I decided to include it.

Paul's songs "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", "Too Many People", "Heart Of The Country" and "The Back Seat Of My Car" are all from his album Ram, which is now regarded as one of his better solo efforts. The album is officially a Paul and Linda album, and Linda got co-writing credits on some of the songs, though her contribution was probably fairly minimal. "Uncle Albert" is one of Paul's better solo tracks, and was also his first US solo number one (and the second solo Beatle number one, after George's "My Sweet Lord"). Even John liked parts of it, though not the whole song. "Too Many People" and "The Back Seat Of My Car" are also standout tracks; both are great melodic pop, though the former angered John, who thought it was directed at him -- and Paul did admit later that one line was about John and Yoko "preaching practices" (John of course replied on Imagine with a far more blatant attack on Paul entitled "How Do You Sleep"). "Heart Of The Country" is a more simple tune, similar to many of the songs on his previous album, McCartney.

For the first two of George's contributions on Working Class Heroes, I continued to mine his brilliant (and long) All Things Must Pass. "Wah-Wah" is a loud rocker written at the time of the Get Back sessions (supposedly inspired in part by an argument with John and the various tensions in the group that led him to quit temporarily). "Beware Of Darkness" is another one of the excellent album tracks from All Things Must Pass. George's third contribution, on the other hand, is a genuine Beatles recording with all four Beatles present. This song, "Not Guilty", was originally slated for The Beatles (The White Album), and the Beatles did over a hundred takes of it (including false starts) but ended up leaving it off the album (this version is from the third Beatles Anthology). Interestingly, the song is a riposte to various criticisms George had been receiving at the time from the other Beatles.

Ringo's contribution, "Early 1970", is the B-side from his hit single "It Don't Come Easy" (which appeared on What Is Life). It's a simple yet entertaining tune which gives the easy-going Ringo's take on the Beatles' situation in, as the title says, early 1970.

Once again, if the Beatles had really stayed together their 1971 album might have been quite different from this (at least "Too Many People" would presumably have had slightly different lyrics). But like What Is Life, Working Class Heroes is a solid set of songs which shows that the Beatles still had what it takes to make great music, even if they no longer did it together.

Topical Music: Songs about Current Issues

Since this post touches on both music and current affairs, I'm cross-posting it both here and in my other blog.

While many – perhaps even most – rock and pop songs deal with topics like personal relationships, there are also quite a few that are about issues relating to politics and society. Several recent news topics reminded me of a few of these songs.

The recent death of Margaret Thatcher inevitably made me and many other people think of the Elvis Costello song “Tramp the Dirt Down”. In this song, Costello declared that he looked forward to Thatcher's death so that he could stand on her grave and as the title says, tramp the dirt down. A pretty vicious song, but considering Thatcher’s friendship with the murderous Chilean dictator Auguste Pinochet, her opposition to putting pressure on South Africa to end apartheid, and many of her policies in Britain, it’s easy to understand Costello’s attitude. I just wonder if he’ll follow through.

A major news topic from the United States is the debate over gun control. While I’ve covered this issue in more detail elsewhere (both seriously and ironically), there are several songs which to a certain degree express some of my own thinking on guns. One is Queen’s “Put Out the Fire”, from their 1981 album Hot Space. One of my favorite parts is the verse where Brian May, the writer of the song, turns an old pro-gun cliché on its head: “You know a gun never killed nobody/You can ask anyone/People get shot by people/People with guns”. Tracy Chapman talks about inner city youth with guns in her excellent song “Bang Bang Bang”. And of course there’s the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Saturday Night Special”, about the gun of the same name that “Ain't no good for nothin' / But put a man six feet in a hole”. Somewhat more indirectly related to the debate is Sting’s song “I Hung My Head” (also covered by Johnny Cash), about a man who accidentally shoots someone – something that happens with appalling frequency in the US – and is hung for it. Incidentally, it has occurred to me that the main reason George Harrison survived his encounter with a homicidally insane "fan" and John Lennon did not is George lived in the UK, where it isn't nearly as easy to get a gun.

The environment is always an issue, and there are numerous songs about it as well. One that came to mind recently was Joni Mitchell’s classic “Big Yellow Taxi” (“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”). It seemed particularly applicable to a controversy at a local school in Taiwan, over the opposition of environmental groups and many students and faculty, the administration pushed through a ridiculous plan to cut down a bunch of old-growth trees in order to build a swimming pool and, you guessed it, a parking lot, or rather a parking garage (not to serve the students – this is a junior high school – or even the faculty, but to make money for the school…because, after all, the main purpose of a public school is to bring in money, right?). I also heard an interesting song dealing with climate change called “Disappearing”. It’s by a musician from Vancouver named Simon Collins (who just happens to be the son of a certain famous British drummer and singer).

Then there was the election of a new Pope, one who despite displaying a refreshing approach still looks like he may be disappointing on some issues. If there’s one song I think of when I think of the Catholic Church, it’s “The Vatican Rag” by the inimitable Tom Lehrer. It may be almost 50 years old, but like so many of Lehrer’s songs, it’s timeless. It was even covered by the great Marty Feldman, best known for his role in Young Frankenstein.