John Lennon: Working Class Hero? - Beatles Childhoods In Liverpool

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by notesfrom, Jan 10, 2022.

  1. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Absolutely positively not.

    From any perspective you care to consider, John Lennon was middle-class, a fact that he himself acknowledged ('I was several rungs up from the others'(sic)).

    Lennon may have chosen to 'identify' himself as 'working-class', but never at all convincingly imo.

    The Beatles were seen as 'working class' because (then, and still to an extent now) people in the south of england (where most of the media is based) equate northern accents with 'poverty', outside lavatories, flat caps, milk bottles on the table and other such paraphernalia. It's amazing (amazingly stupid, that is) how these people manage to incorrectly extrapolate so much from short vowels in someone's speech.

    The same applied to 'northern british' actors of the period - Albert Finney, Alan Bates, David Warner and Peter O'Toole were considered 'working-class', though not one of them actually was (Finney's father was a very successful Salford bookmaker (as was O'Toole's, though in Leeds), Bates' father was an accountant and Warner's adopted father ran a care home (leaving aside the fact that Bates was from the East Midlands, not the north and Warner was brought up in terminally posh Leamington Spa (in Warwickshire - West Midlands)).


    The term 'working class' is unhelpful and should be dropped from all discourse forthwith. In truth, it should've been dropped years ago. Let's just say 'the poor' - I'd say 'the working poor' but many of them are poor because they can't/don't work.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2022
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  2. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe

    I'm not sure it's a stigma. According to a recent survey, a massive '79 per cent' of britons identify themselves as working class. But the term is unhelpful and confusing - most people have to work to support themselves. I'm sure most of those who identify themselves as 'working class' do so because they 'have to work' rather than for any cultural reasons.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2022
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  3. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    Many apologies. In the UK between 1950 and, say, 1990, there was such a stigma. Agree?
     
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  4. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe

    I believe a 'working class' (hate that term!) American is more affluent than his british equivalent.
     
  5. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Not really. If anything, it was something people boasted about - even if (especially if) they weren't actually 'working class'. Or if they couldn't brag about it themselves, they bragged about their parents or grandparents who grew up in council houses (American equivalent: 'the projects').

    I've read about pre-Revolutionary Russians who used to brag about how genuinely poor they were. Similar thing.

    I personally don't know a single person whom I would identify as working-class. I don't think I ever have.
     
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  6. mercuryvenus

    mercuryvenus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    In the US, we have the delusion that people can switch classes. The whole American Dream thing … you can be born into whatever socioeconomic class, but with enough hard work, you can become something more.

    I think there’s also a bias people have against describing themselves as upper class. There have been polls done where the vast majority of people will describe themselves as middle class, even if their incomes dictate that they are upper class.

    The other critical thing is that we do not have a history of landed elite, per se. So while there are certainly people with inherited wealth, you can be part of the American upper class if you simply earn a ton of money. There might be *some* circles of “old money” you wouldn’t be accepted into, but by and large, you will be considered upper class.
     
  7. Nakamichi

    Nakamichi The iceage is coming....

    Location:
    St199nf
    Everyone from Liverpool is working class by default.
    Americans won't understand.
     
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  8. mercuryvenus

    mercuryvenus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Maryland, USA
    We don’t really say ‘working class’ in the US. I think we’d more say ‘lower middle class’ or ‘working poor.’ ‘Working poor’ means someone living paycheck to paycheck (aka not able to save any money). They have a blue collar job.
     
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  9. Sear

    Sear Dad rocker

    Location:
    Tarragona (Spain)
    I think this delusion is universal
     
  10. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    I think ‘working poor’ is a more honest, less loaded definition.
     
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  11. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe

    I’m from Liverpool, and I’m not! :)
     
  12. Nakamichi

    Nakamichi The iceage is coming....

    Location:
    St199nf
    I guarantee you are.
    No one with money chooses to live in Liverpool.
    As soon as people make it in life, they buy a mansion in Surrey or an Island off the Scottish coast .
     
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  13. notesfrom

    notesfrom Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NC USA
    I don't think it's a delusion. More like an aspiration. It happens all the time - it can be done. 'Hard work pays off' is a motto, practically everywhere - especially as it relates to children in school. Parents instill a work ethic into their kids (or not), and an admonishment to make something of themselves - a la Jim McCartney to Paul. Some parents, of course, just want their kids to be happy, and don't give them that extra push.
     
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  14. Jack Lord

    Jack Lord Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Probably. I reside in what has become an upper middle class neighborhood. Lots of lawyers, communications specialists, lobbyists, and various inside-Washington parasites. However, the fella with one of the best houses is our neighborhood plumber.

    Working Class basically means you work with your hands. That runs the gamut. Could mean the immigrants who mow lawns. Could mean someone like an electrician, welder, cop, or the aforementioned plumber. The latter all make good money. The former not so much, but probably more than their home country. It's really an elastic notion.

    If you want the older, perhaps more romantic notion, grab a Bruce Springsteen album and pop open a legacy brew like Pabst Blue Ribbon, Natty Boh, or Olde Style.
     
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  15. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe

    I’m from there but I haven’t lived there for years.

    You’ll find plenty of people ‘with money’ living in places like Aigburth.
     
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  16. Sear

    Sear Dad rocker

    Location:
    Tarragona (Spain)
    Of course you need to work to live decently. But this is not the same I was talking about
     
  17. Jack Lord

    Jack Lord Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC

    Not at all.

    I attended college in New York. A good portion of my classmates were the first in their families to attend college. Their fathers were working class, some even off the boat from Ireland. My room mate was the son of a coal miner. Today he is an investment banker. Most others made the jump as well.

    There is class in America but thankfully it is very fluid.
     
  18. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
    Yes, but that was because a stigma existed that was similar to the 60's stigma attached to the American ghetto. It was seen as having street cred to say you associated with what is now known in America as "urban culture". Same in the UK. No one would brag about the working class if a stigma had not originally existed, similar to the US now. The "tough people" who worked themselves up from it and now brag about it. Similar to Lennon and his song.
     
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  19. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe

    Can’t speak for America but the next generation of british kids will have to slog their guts out just to own their own clothes, never mind their own homes.
     
  20. Phil D

    Phil D Forum Resident

    You are either being childishly provocative or more likely rude and ignorant. Wherever it is you're from, your "input" to this conversation isn't particularly welcome.
     
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  21. Gloi

    Gloi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lancashire,England
  22. Chemically altered

    Chemically altered Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ukraine in Spirit
  23. Jack Lord

    Jack Lord Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    You are probably correct.

    A friend in England purchased an inn for an investment/side gig. He had to negotiate with none other than the Duke of Northumberland or some such.

    To this Yank, that sounds like something out of a fairy tale.
     
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  24. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic

    Location:
    Britain, Europe

    Large parts of britain are still owned by ‘feudal interests’. Interestingly, these include Oxford and Cambridge universities, both of which own vast tracts of the ‘best parts’ of London.
     
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  25. Vangro

    Vangro Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    The majority of people in Britain when the Beatles were growing up were working class. I haven't seen any stats recently but most people in the UK, when polled, described themselves as working class up until relatively recently . Not sure if that's still the case
     
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