The music monument: Working class hero

The music monument

John Lennon's song "Working class hero" is a musical declaration of war against an economic system that deforms people - is that why he had to die?

By Tom-Oliver Regenauer

[This article posted on 10/15/2022 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/das-musik-monument.]

The Beatles' history and continued work to this day is like the crosswalk of Abbey Road - an alternation of light and darkness. The Beatles created a musical echo that resonates to this day. The four British "Lads" with mushroom hairdos became world stars in the 1960s, doing pioneering work in the history of pop music. The band's history, overflowing with success before and after its existence, was and is not free of dark sides. After 1967, it seemed that Paul McCartney was no longer the same, as if he had been replaced. Moreover, mysterious deaths and attempted murders occurred within as well as in the Beatles' haze. John Lennon is one of the band members who died prematurely due to a violent death, but in the process left behind immortality. Lennon exuded a spirit of the true, the good and the beautiful. His lyrics and words in interviews gave a broad mass an idea that the world could also be completely different, more beautiful and more human. And it was precisely this that taught the Anglo-American elite system to fear. The voice of the former Beatles singer severely broke the chains of the system. That his death was in the sense of the system seems plausible consequently. Accordingly, countless unanswered questions, strange coincidences, and mysterious circumstances surround his murder in 1980, but as quickly as the death shots faded, Lennon's tones echo endlessly. One of his most monumental works is undoubtedly "Working class hero". The song, which is musically and lyrically very easy to adapt, consequently found a gigantic spread - after all, pretty much every person from the systemic hamster wheel can recognize themselves in it. A lyric to the #PeaceNotes campaign.

"When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote: happy. They told me that I didn't understand the task. And I told them they didn't understand life" (John Winston Lennon).

John Winston Lennon was ahead of his time. And of his band. At least in terms of his political as well as philosophical insights and views. The Liverpool-born musician was the founder and official bandleader of the most successful rock group in music history, The Beatles, even though in the late phase of the congenial formation his childhood friend Paul McCartney was often in the foreground, both musically and in the media.

The Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do," was released in 1962, and after the band had set a multitude of all-time records that are still valid today - and, as in 2018, continue to set them with the longest period of time between two identical number one placements - the four artists parted ways again as early as 1970. Eight years were enough to change the world. The four "Lads" are said to have sold around one billion records to date. The band's love of experimentation and innovation ensured that their work continues to resonate to the present day. And the songs still sound amazingly "fresh" even after 60 years.

In terms of technology, too, the exceptional musicians - supported by the sound engineers at London's Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Studios) - broke new ground with each release. In addition, they redefined the relationship between artists and record labels and producers, delivered the first genuine concept album in pop history, and invented the DI box (direct injection) in the studio, with which electric guitars could now be connected directly to mixing consoles. A revolution. They were the first band to print song lyrics on their albums, organized the first stadium concerts, recorded the first hard rock song in history ("Helter Skelter"), were the headliners of the first worldwide live television broadcast via satellite with grandees such as Pablo Picasso or Maria Callas, and laid the foundation for the "music video" format as we know it today with their music films. The Rolling Stones' first chart hit was also penned by Lennon and McCartney. In 2004, the music magazine Rolling Stone rightly ranked the Beatles first among the 100 greatest musicians of all time.

After the last joint album, "Abbey Road", which is listed in the discography before "Let It Be", but was recorded after - because "Let It Be" is the only album of the Beatles, which was not produced by George Martin in London, but Phil Spector in the U.S. - and therefore came later on the market, the band split due to various differences. Artistically, organizationally, privately - they had grown apart, energies had been used up. Fame and money took an additional toll.

So much for the official story. For the astronomical success of the four bards from Liverpool also seemed to attract and release dark forces. Thus, to this day oodles of fans and nerds like Mike Williams deal with the numerous mysteries that have always given the band a mysterious aura. From the supposed replacement of Paul McCartney with a doppelganger because the real Beatle is said to have died in a car accident in 1967, to the image of Aleister Crowley, the controversial occultist, and other oddities on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." There are many myths surrounding the history of the mushroom heads.

For example, the rumors circulating since the 1960s that the Tavistock Institute, a British social engineering institution, misused the band to push the flower power movement, thus laying the foundation for the fragmented and self-centered society of the media age. Possibly. Because, as we have to admit today, the revolutionary efforts of the flower children from the "Swinging Sixties" mostly petered out in the living rooms of a well-off middle class. With the end of their adolescence, they delegated the responsibility for saving the planet to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), left-wing parties and a few exposed activists. However, one still waits in vain for world peace.

Doubts also persist about the official account of the early death of Brian Epstein, the homosexual manager of the Beatles. He is said to have died of a drug cocktail on August 27, 1967. Other voices claim that he was eliminated or committed suicide because he was unhappily in love with John Lennon and was rejected by him. Or because one was endeavored in higher place to cover up sexual escapades of the both. There are also questions about the improbable musical complexity of some of the Beatles' compositions. In the opinion of not a few experts, the "Fab Four", who were unversed in music theory, could hardly have managed this on their own. Sir George Martin, the Beatles' producer, on the other hand, had enjoyed a classical musical education. It is well known that he was responsible for the string arrangements on songs like "Yesterday" or "Eleanor Rigby" and that he repeatedly gave the young musicians tips and suggestions. It is unclear whether there were any other persons who had a significant influence on the compositions.

A multitude of dubious deaths in the environment of the band are also unexplained up to the present. First of all that of Mal Evans, the long-time road manager and "girl for everything" of the Beatles, next to Neil Aspinall probably the person who was closest to the band over all the years. Friend. He was shot with six bullets by American police in Los Angeles in 1976. Allegedly because he opened his motel door and held a gun in his hand. However, as it turned out, it was only a toy gun lying on the table in the room. Moreover, Mal Evans was considered a level-headed, reliable and loving person - Paul McCartney called him a "good-natured teddy bear." Nevertheless, not a single Beatle attended Mal's funeral.

Piquant: Evans had a manuscript with him. And a suitcase full of documents with intimate information about his time with the Beatles. He wanted to discuss both the next day with his publisher Grosset & Dunlap, which was also supposed to help him publish an insider book. Both the manuscript and the suitcase containing the documents have been missing since the lethal visit by the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department). The former Beatles roadie was cremated on site in LA and then shipped by urn back to England - where it was initially lost in the mail.

Dubious, too, were the circumstances surrounding the near-fatal attack on George Harrison in December 1999. At 3:30 a.m., the perpetrator, Michael Abraham, forced his way into Friar Park, the Harrisons' estate. George, who was awake, confronted the intruder. However, an attempt to take Abraham by surprise to wrest the knife from him failed. The latter then stabbed the ex-Beatle several times. Subsequently, he also went after Harrison's wife. However, she was able to break away and hide. After 15 minutes, the police arrived at the scene and arrested the attacker. He gave as motive for the crime, analogous to Mark David Chapman, the murderer of John Lennon, that he had heard voices in his head, which motivated him to the attack. Harrison survived it. Badly injured.

"I think we're being driven by madmen, to a mad end. And I think I'm going to be locked up as a madman for saying that. That's the insane part of it" (John Winston Lennon).

Like Mark David Chapman, Michael Abraham was an unstable personality, suffered from mental health problems in the run-up to the crime, took drugs, and had repeated contact with law enforcement. After just 19 months of inpatient treatment in a psychiatric hospital, Abraham has been at large again since 2002. It is worth noting that the knife attack on Harrison took place only 24 hours after a conversation between George and Ringo Starr, the Beatles' drummer, in the course of which Harrison apparently announced that he wanted to end the secrecy surrounding the Beatles, especially the rumors about Paul, and go public with the truth. George Harrison never commented on the subject afterwards.

This is of course water on the mills of those Beatles fans who think Paul McCartney is a double. For "lazy." And as abstruse as such a theory may seem - there are indeed indications that move the scenario at least into the realm of possibility. For example, the fact that McCartney spent nine days in the local drug jail during a visit to Japan in 1980. And not because he had a bag of marijuana in his luggage when he entered the country, but because the Japanese authorities were unable to verify the music legend's fingerprints. They were different from those McCartney had given in the 1960s, when he toured Japan with the Beatles and also had contact with the police. Only the intervention of the British government ensured that McCartney could leave Japan again on January 25, 1980. Without legal consequences, despite the not inconsiderable amount of weed in his luggage, for which normal mortals in Japan spend a good seven years behind bars. Until a few years ago, there was still an informative article about this incident in a Tokyo daily newspaper on the Internet. However, this has since been deleted.

In this context, the results of Italian forensic experts, which were published in Wired Magazine in 2009, also make one wonder. Biometric data and the scientific evaluation of photos from various periods led the two researchers to the conclusion that there were at least two people who appeared as Paul McCartney over the course of time. Similar conclusions were reached by a study conducted by the University of Naples (Italy) in 2019, which stated a clear difference in the ductus of Paul McCartney during the creative periods before and after the album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" - the period in which the double is said to have directed.

The story surrounding a paternity suit that was pending against "Macca" in Germany appears similarly confusing. SPIEGEL International reported on this on May 21, 2007. So did the FAZ and the English newspaper The Telegraph. The accusation was that Paul McCartney was denying paternity to a child conceived out of wedlock in Hamburg in the early 1960s. In addition, he had given false DNA samples in the first trial in this regard, which took place in the 1980s and was decided in favor of McCartney. The signature on the corresponding documents came, according to recent test results, from a right-handed person - while Paul is known to write and play guitar with his left hand.

The plaintiff, who was 46 years old at the time, also told the BILD newspaper that Paul had given her mother a one-time payment of 30,000 German marks in 1966 as compensation and hush money - and that he had also subsequently given her 200 German marks per month as a child support payment for many years. The public prosecutor's office began an investigation. But the case was dropped in 2007. Even if the crime had taken place, according to justice spokesman Michael Grundwald, the statute of limitations had expired in the meantime.

The question arises as to why the mother filed a paternity suit in the first place, if she has to assume that a DNA test will be performed as part of the taking of evidence, after which it would be possible to determine beyond doubt whether she is telling the truth - if this is not the case? The same applies to the daughter's new complaint. Under this premise, one must actually assume that the ladies seriously assumed that they would finally be able to decide the lawsuits in their favor, because the "real" Paul would have to have his genetic material tested. Consequently, the DNA sample of McCartney from the 1980s, which did not match the DNA of the offspring in dispute, was actually "fake", i.e. did at least not come from the Paul with whom the Hamburg woman had been intimate between 1959 and 1962, or it is not the same person. Or the plaintiff was not in full possession of her faculties when she went to the public prosecutor's office.

It would also be interesting to know what Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills was talking about live on U.S. television when she told of "truths beyond imagining" regarding her former husband. Truths that were so "shocking that the world would not bear them." Further, Mills reported that she had filed appropriate documents and evidence with third parties to protect herself and her family from Paul and those around him. Moreover, she emphatically clarifies that these truths are not affairs or similar common rock star scandals. This, of course, arouses curiosity.

Accordingly, there are plenty of stories, if you follow the more than 60-year history of the most successful band of all time. And new books and documentaries on the subject are still being published. Most recently, for example, "Faul - The Musical" or the ominous book series "The Memoirs of Billy Shears", written by the equally ominous author Thomas E. Uharriet, who otherwise seems to deal primarily with the subject of haiku. How he came to put himself in the role of Paul's double years ago - or, should he exist, how he managed to get hold of his secret information - is not known. Wikipedia even has a dedicated discussion forum on the subject of "Paul is dead". But even this could not create certainty so far.

So the doubting Beatles fan must probably continue to live with the nagging uncertainty of whether it is the real Paul McCartney who continues to tour tirelessly around the world - or whether it is perhaps Vivian Stanshell, William Campbell, Phil Ackrill of "Danny Laine and The Diplomats" or Bill Shepherd, frontman of the band "Billy Pepper & The Pepperpots" alias Billy Shears, who have been miming the Beatle since 1967. How the mentioned candidates manage or managed to continue their own lives parallel to the portrayal of the busy Beatle, the corresponding theories unfortunately leave open.

Some things, however, one might not even want to fathom in more detail - but, as in the present case, for once simply be satisfied with the shimmering illusion, the end result, the art. For the timeless quality of the music suffers to this day in no way from the potentially dark stains in the band's history or supposed manipulations from the deep-state background.

"Life is what happens while you are planning" (John Winston Lennon).

In any case, after the breakup of the Beatles, it was Paul McCartney who was the first former band member to release his eponymous solo album. He had already worked on it during the recordings of "Abbey Road", which caused additional upsets in the band structure at the time. John had also worked with his wife Yoko Ono in 1968 and 1969 on new music and thus began, as it were, to distance himself from his band, but brought only after the last Beatles album and McCartney the first solo disc on the market. Title of the record: "John Lennon/Plastik Ono Band", hailed by many critics as the most honest rock record of all time.

After years of tour stress, Beatlemania and various bad experiences with the dark side of the music industry, Lennon was no longer interested in staged publicity, image design, dates and marketing. He was searching for himself, the meaning of life and the truth.

For the introverted and melancholic free spirit had soon after reaching world star status recognized the true character of the feudal system based on greed, which sought to instrumentalize him commercially and ideologically as a product, as a rock star, youth idol and peace activist - and later to eliminate him.

Thus, John's solo debut already features the grandiose title "Working Class Hero" - probably the best political song - or song lyric - of all time. At least from the author's point of view. There are several reasons for this resolute statement: For one thing, the piece is musically very simple and therefore quick to learn even for guitar novices. The chord progression consists primarily of A minor as well as G major and only changes to D major for one line of the chorus. This gives the song a better chance to spread quickly. In addition, the vocals are also not very complex and invite you to sing along. After a few runs, one is able to repeat the lines by heart. Even without musical accompaniment. On the other hand - and much more important - the text is universally interpretable. For every person in this world.

In other words: everyone who lives in a society shaped by capitalism will find himself in "Working Class Hero" in his own individual way. And this not only in a single line, in the one outstanding metaphor or a catchphrase that stands for itself - but in the entire text, which traces the life of a working class person in the neo-feudalistic-corrupt system of our time in an exemplary way that is open to interpretation. From birth to career peak. Each line immediately creates an image in the mind, evoking childhood memories. This is what makes the verses written by John Lennon in late 1970 so powerful, the emotions triggered by the piece so overwhelming.

"You don't need anybody to tell you who or what you are. You are what you are!" (John Winston Lennon)

Automatically the receiver projects his own life path, subjective experiences, personal memories and forgotten feelings into the lyrics recited by the ex-Beatle in a calm voice. John Lennon takes the listener on a journey through his own past. Meaning that of the teenager from Liverpool, who grew up with his aunt - and that of the listener equally. He exposes the school system as indoctrination. Then the world of work as modern serfdom. And distills this information into a handful of syllables. That is high art. Writing complex, heady texts is comparatively simple. Behind the simplicity, memorability and universal adaptability of a song, beyond one's own life reality, one's own cultural sphere and one's own era, lies the path to the masterpiece.

The amazing to depressing thing about "Working Class Hero": The text has not lost one iota of its topicality to this day. More than half a century after the title was taken up, Homo consumens is still a slave to his fears.

And on top of that, more than ever, he is the plaything of system-inherent incapacitation and dehumanization, of processes of expropriation, ideological power struggles and imposed military-industrial hegemonic interests. These fascistoid tendencies - following almost linearly George Orwell's dystopia "1984" - were obviously already clearly foreseeable for Lennon in the 1970s, as various interviews with the musician and peace activist from that time attest. Even then, the politicized Beatle criticized the perfidious geopolitical castles of the dominant power blocs USA, Russia and China. Furthermore, it was absolutely clear to the Liverpool native that the monopoly of violence of the mafia-like system of the state could not be overcome by force. That resistance and revolution only have a chance if the protest breaks through peacefully.

"If it comes to using violence, then you are playing the system's game. The establishment will irritate you (...) to make you fight. Because once they make you violent, then they know how to deal with you. The only thing they can't handle is nonviolence and humor" (John Winston Lennon).

Thus, for his campaigns, he relied on slogans like "Give Peace a Chance" or "War Is Over If You Want It," on crowd-pleasing "Bed-ins for Peace" with Yoko, on artistic freedom and humor - especially in dealing with the dark forces of the Deep State, which, for their part, did everything in their power to expel Lennon as quickly as possible from the United States, which he chose as his adopted home after the breakup of his first band. "Working Class Hero" caused headaches in the U.S. establishment right at the beginning of Lennon's stay in America in 1971, even though the song had been released a year earlier. Senators and officials complained about the song's fecal language and subversive, anti-state tone. Radio stations played it anyway, with a few exceptions that went along with the state's call for a boycott.

Just four months after "Working Class Hero," in March 1971, John's single "Power to the People" was released. Closely followed by his best-known peace anthem - "Imagine" - in October 1971, the direction of the march was clear. And the ex-Beatle was out of favor with the U.S. establishment. The American authorities left no stone unturned to torpedo the British musician's application for naturalization. Meanwhile, "Imagine" became the most successful song of his solo career. More than 200 artists have reinterpreted it to date. The title is among the 100 most played songs of all time and was ranked 30th in the list of songs of the century by the "Recording Industry Association of America" (RIAA). John Lennon's message was unstoppable.

"Ideas don't need weapons if they can convince the great masses" (Fidel Castro).

After the release of his big hit single, John Lennon had only nine years to live. The first half of it he drank a lot, took drugs and didn't really know what to do with himself. From 1975 to 1980, he primarily took care of his son Sean, the only child with Yoko. Asked what he had been doing since the mid-1970s, he replied in an interview, "Baking bread and looking after the baby." And just when he had begun working on new songs, inspired by a stormy sailing trip to Bermuda, his story was to come to its abrupt as well as dramatic end. Presumably, his mass-mobilizing pacifism and vocal criticism of the Vietnam War ultimately doomed him. On December 8, 1980, at about eleven o'clock at night, the then 40-year-old Lennon was shot dead in front of the entrance to New York's Dakota Building. By Mark David Chapman, a confused lone perpetrator, according to the official account.

After Lennon's cremation, Yoko Ono scattered his ashes in nearby Central Park. Nowadays, the Imagine Memorial, which is always littered with flowers, letters and devotional objects, is located at the site in question. His murderer, on the other hand, is alive. And periodically applies for release from prison. In 2020, his eleventh parole application was denied. The next hearing will take place in August 2022. Presumably with a similar outcome. Because Yoko Ono appeals the request every two years.

The prevailing opinion on Chapman's motive for the crime was and is that he shot to become famous - as a celebrity killer. However, this argument does not really hold water in light of Chapman's confession. After all, if he had sought publicity, he would have followed his lawyer's advice and gone to what would probably be a worldwide sensational criminal trial. Prime-time TV coverage included. However, due to his immediate guilty plea, no show trial took place. Chapman went directly to prison. He also generally held back on interviews and other options to get attention.

During a TV interview with Larry King in 1992, twelve years after the murder, Chapman tried to describe his motives, to narrow down the trigger for the crime. Logically, his explanations did not appear. The reasons for his actions remained vague. It appeared that he himself was still searching for answers. Or not telling the whole story - perhaps not being able to tell it. And he doesn't even have to lie about it, as research by U.S. author Phil Strongman on the Mark David Chapman case reveals.

In his book "John Lennon: Life, Times and Assassination," published in 2010, he examines the obvious inconsistencies regarding the course of events, the nebulous past of the suspected lone perpetrator, his motives and, above all, the striking negligence of the U.S. authorities during the investigation of the assassination. Strongman brings into focus precisely those questions that the FBI should have asked had the U.S. actually been interested in solving the violent crime, but studiously avoided raising.

For example: Who is Chapman, the "nobody," as he calls himself, from a Georgia hick town? Why is he commonly portrayed as a Lennon and Beatles fanatic? Not a single phonograph record, book, newspaper clipping or other Beatles-related material was found in his apartment. What motivated Chapman to fly from his Hawaii home to New York on the days leading up to the murder - and what was he doing during the misappropriated unnecessary layover at the Chicago airport? Why was Chapman living in Hawaii in the first place, near a CIA training camp? What exactly was he doing at his employer, World Vision International, an organization founded in 1950 and rumored to be one of countless CIA shadow companies? Why was Chapman in Beirut, a CIA stronghold during the Cold War?

Why were all the bullet holes on the left side of John Lennon's body if Mark David Chapman was standing behind him on the right when he fired? How was he able to aim so accurately that the medical examiners had trouble removing the bullets, which were almost on top of each other, during the autopsy? According to the court's opinion, this was a ballistic masterpiece - and highly improbable for non-professionals, especially since it was fired from the wrong angle. Why were experts excluded from the investigation who assumed that there were several shooters? Why did no one take a closer look at the Dakota Building security guard on duty at the time of the crime - José Sanjenís Perdomo - even though he had demonstrably worked for American intelligence as a professional killer and hired on as a mercenary for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba? Why was Perdomo able to calmly walk up to Chapman after the shooting of Lennon and take the loaded gun out of his hand - completely unopposed by the shooter? Wouldn't the natural reaction in such a moment of shock be to take cover himself in the guardhouse at the entrance to the Dakota Building or to return fire on Chapman? For what reason was Perdomo not afraid that Chapman would point the gun at him and pull the trigger? Was it because Perdomo and Chapman had been loitering alone outside the Dakota's entrance all evening, talking about the Bay of Pigs or the assassination of John F. Kennedy, until Lennon showed up at just before 11:00 p.m.?

"Jose Perdomo told police Chapman was Lennon's killer. One of the arresting officers, Peter Cullen, did not believe Chapman had shot Lennon. Cullen believed the shooter was a handyman in the Dakota, but Perdomo convinced Cullen it was Chapman" (Latin News Agency, December 8, 2018).

Beyond that, the imperative of criminal detective 101 always applies: follow the money! So how did Chapman, who never had a steady job, a good income, or anything like a career, finance himself? Where did the man with odd jobs get the money for his above-average lifestyle? Who paid for the six-week round-the-world trip Chapman took in 1978 - and what did he do in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, New Delhi, Geneva, London, Paris and Dublin?

Perhaps the most important question: why did Chapman stand around paralyzed at the scene after Lennon was shot? As if he had just awakened from a dream? Passers-by and patrol police describe his behavior as that of a will-less zombie. Disoriented and confused - by himself and his surroundings. Where was his flight reflex? Why wasn't he running away? And why wasn't Chapman drug tested?

Why ignore the fact that Chapman speaks of voices in his head vehemently telling him to "do it" before the shooting?

That he himself describes remembering the moment of the crime as if it were "two different movies" - one in the minutes before firing the gun that made him nervous, agitated, emotionally corrupted, and one after pulling the trigger that he describes as calm, empty, senseless, and paralyzing? Chapman went on record to say that in the minutes after the act, he felt as if he had been jolted out of a deep sleep, out of a dream.

All of these questions were not resolved during the official investigation. Corresponding FBI files remain under lock and key to this day. Top Secret. National security and all that. We know this from the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In view of the above facts, however, it does not take much imagination to picture what actually happened in New York on December 8, 1980. Especially if one has dealt with the disturbing MKULTRA, MKNAOMI, MKOFTEN, MKCHICKWIT, CHATTER or ARTICHOKE programs of the US secret services.

The goal of these despicable human experiments: manipulation of consciousness. The creation of subconsciously acting killers, who can be activated from the normal state by trigger signal and be moved to the act. The methods: LSD, electric shocks, psycho-torture, sleep deprivation, verbal and physical violence. Anyone who assumes that such ideas are merely suitable as material for a nice spy flick is mistaken. A declassified CIA report from 1975, for example, states:

"If hypnosis was successful, assassins could be created to assassinate a prominent (...) politician or, if necessary, an American official."

Stephen Kinzer, who has long studied the CIA's secret projects, wrote in his book "Poisoner in Chief," published in September 2019:

"In the early 1950s, the CIA established secret detention centers in areas under American control in Europe and East Asia. Mainly in Japan, Germany, and the Philippines. (...) The CIA captured individuals suspected of being enemy agents. And other persons it deemed expendable to carry out various kinds of torture and human experimentation on them. The prisoners were interrogated while being administered psychoactive drugs, given electric shocks, subjected to extreme temperatures. They were subjected to sensory isolation and the like in order to develop a better understanding of how to destroy and control the human mind."

David McGowan, in his work "Programmed to Kill" (2004), also uses numerous original sources to describe how U.S. intelligence agencies breed sleepers. So anyone who still believes in the fairy tale that the state is one's friend might want to reconsider that position now. For the list of unethical human experiments is long. Many of them have been astonishingly successful, if you want to call it that. But at the top of the food chain, there are no scruples. There you learn to smile when you kill.

This is exactly what John Lennon describes with his last line in "Working Class Hero": "First you must learn how to smile as you kill". So Mark David Chapman may have been a Manchurian Candidate or just the useful idiot. Or both.

In any case, the circumstantial evidence gives every reason to believe that it is the US government that has the Beatles founder on its conscience. Because it could not get him out of the country by legal means and became visibly afraid of his ability to turn the masses against the ruling system. Peacefully, but firmly. With love, humor and creativity.

Fortunately, his death did not silence him. The opposite is the case. Because John Winston Lennon became more immortal through the assassination than he already was as a member of the most successful band of all times. Not a martyr - but a working class hero whose ideas and ideals will endure the ages. Imagine Peace.

Working Class Hero (John Lennon, 1971)

As soon as you're born they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of it all,

Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,

They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,

Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules.

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,

Then they expect you to pick a career,

When you can't really function, you're so full of fear.

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,

And you think you're so clever and classless and free,

But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.

A working class hero is something to be,

A working class hero is something to be.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,

If you want to be like the folks on the hill.

A working class hero is something to be.

A working class hero is something to be.

If you want to be a hero well just follow me,

If you want to be a hero well just follow me

German translation (Tom Regenauer)

As soon as you are born, they make you feel small,

By giving you no time instead of all the time in the world,

Until the pain is so great that you feel nothing at all.

A working class hero is something worth being.

A working class hero is something worth being.

They hurt you at home and beat you at school,

They hate you if you're smart, and despise a fool,

Until you're so fucking crazy you can't even follow their rules.

A working class hero is something worth being.

A working class hero is something worth being.

When they have tortured and frightened you for close to twenty years,

Then they expect you to choose a career path,

Even though you can't function at all, you're so full of fear.

A working class hero is something worth being.

A working class hero is something worth being.

They keep you numb with religion and sex and TV,

and you think you're fucking smart and classless and free,

When in fact you're still fucking serfs, as far as I can see.

A working class hero is something worth being.

A working class hero is something worth being.

There's room at the top, they still tell you that,

But first you have to learn to smile while you kill,

If you want to be like the people on Capitol Hill.

A working class hero is something worth being.

A working class hero is something worth being.

If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me.

If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me.

John Lennon, "Working class hero"

Tom-Oliver Regenauer was born in 1978. After completing a business education, he worked in various industries and roles, including as an operations manager, corporate and management consultant, and international project manager with assignments in more than 20 countries. Since the mid-1990s, he has also been active as a music producer and lyricist and runs an independent record label. The German-born author has lived in Switzerland since 2009. His most recent publication was "The Elephant in the Room: The Second Year 'New Normal' Independently Commented." For more information, visit regenauer.press.

Read more

Now is the time for reappraisal!

The new totalitarianism was established by numerous people in charge who must be held accountable - that's what Marcus Klöckner and Jens Wernicke do in the new Rubikon book "May the entire republic point the finger".