A season of retrospectives, including the first-ever digital release, "Working Class Hero," celebrates the timeless legacy of the late, great artist
By Alan Light

Among the A-list demigods in rock-and-roll history, John Lennon is the most human. Bob Dylan is vaguely otherworldly, touched by grace ("You can just look at him and see that," said producer Bob Johnston in the recent "No Direction Home" documentary). Jimi Hendrix -- R&B road veteran, paratrooper, instrumental visionary, dead at 27 -- was clearly not of this earth. Mick Jagger feels untouchable, whereas Keith Richards remains a perfect cartoon outlaw, brandishing his five-string Fender like a pirate's cutlass.

But Lennon never seemed out of reach. It's why his image -- and usually, though not always, his music -- has aged so well and why it's still so shocking to think about his murder. He introduced, or at least perfected, the whole idea of humanity, fallibility and individuality to rock songwriting. As far back as songs such as "Help" and "In My Life," he expressed genuine vulnerability -- not just teenage melodrama -- in ways that were previously impossible to imagine. Dylan opened the doors for unprecedented, experimental new lyrical directions, but he adamantly refused to ever reveal himself so directly. Lennon was all about letting us inside his head, and his world. It's no surprise, then, that Lennon craved and thrived on the democracy and chaos of New York City, and, horribly, it's somehow inevitable that such accessibility led to his death at the hands of a self-proclaimed fan.

This season marks two significant anniversaries. October 9 would have been John Lennon's 65th birthday. On December 8, 25 years will have passed since his murder, absurd and implausible as that sounds. Taking stock of Lennon is always a complicated task, because our human-scale relationship with his mythology renders him impossible to pin down. He tends to reflect whatever you choose to see in him. In Walt Whitman's over-quoted words, Lennon contradicted himself, and he contained multitudes. He was an activist and a homebody, a cynic and a romantic. His legacy is whatever you make it -- and he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Along with the commemoration of the landmark dates has come, not surprisingly, a flood of new products. There's a shelf full of new books (including a telling memoir by his first wife, Cynthia, and a moving chronicle of his NYC years from photographer Bob Gruen); several DVDs (the 1988 "Imagine" documentary, John and Yoko's three remarkable 1971 appearances on "The Dick Cavett Show"); and first-time CD and digital releases of the "Sometime in New York City" and "Walls and Bridges" albums, plus a two-disc collection called "Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon," which also represents the first Lennon material, solo or otherwise, to be available digitally (Nov. 8 release). Along with Bob Spitz's massive new Beatles biography and the usual stream of Beatles-related material, such as "This Bird Has Flown," a recent album paying tribute to the 40th anniversary of "Rubber Soul," (to say nothing of Paul McCartney's current tour, which happily goes heavy on the Beatles' songs), it's guaranteed that John won't be leaving the spotlight anytime soon.

The "Working Class Hero" set raises any number of questions about the treatment of an artist cut down in his creative years. Starting with: If the single-disc "Lennon Legend" and "John Lennon Collection" albums and the four-disc "Anthology" box set already exist, is this new compilation necessary? It's a tough call. For the casual fan, the essential hits have been covered just fine, and for the more serious listener, the complete Lennon catalog only consists of eight studio albums (plus scattered singles). The inclusion of five tracks from the erratic "Walls and Bridges" -- though not the scathing "Steel and Glass" in which Lennon flashes his caustic wit like a shiv -- might just indicate that this album is stretched too thin to be truly "definitive." There are no previously unreleased songs, only a few semi-rarities from the "Anthology" and "Live in New York City" albums, but nothing from last year's fascinating "Acoustic" release.

But a case can be made that as an introduction to Lennon, "Working Class Hero" does fill a void -- all the more so given that it represents the only legal digital Lennon music in the online world. In the end, he's a figure too multifaceted to cover in a one-disc treatment. The most notable -- though perfectly understandable, given the limitations -- omissions from the earlier collections were the brilliant, bracing songs from 1970's "Plastic Ono Band" album. (This is the place to stop and say that every second of "Plastic Ono Band" is essential, flawless and required listening even for a Lennon neophyte.) The "Collection" somehow included only the delicate "Love," whereas "Legend" added "Mother" and "Working Class Hero." The new set augments those three with the two songs "God" and "Isolation,"which in some ways form the very core of "Plastic Ono Band."

Taken together, those two songs represent the paradox, and the triumph, at the heart of a painfully intimate work: the terror that comes from recognizing our true solitude and the strength that comes from embracing it. The most famous words in "God," of course, come with Lennon's climactic proclamation that "I don't believe in Beatles," but the song's real conclusion lies in the line that follows, "I just believe in me." There's no question that the inclusion of these songs makes for a greater understanding of the complexity of Lennon as a person and as an artist.

That's what jumps out of "Working Class Hero" -- the raw emotion and depth of feeling that John Lennon reached. It didn't always make for great songs, not even enough to sustain an edit down to 38 selections. But it's also hard to argue that a true representation of Lennon should prioritize consistency.

Indeed, it is the very extremes of feeling that you notice on this collection: from the exultant bliss of "Oh Yoko!" and "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" to the anguish of "Mother" and "Scared," from the innocence of "Give Peace a Chance" to the fury of "Gimme Some Truth." We've gotten so used to hearing our superstars perform in character, or emote from behind a scrim of irony, that the immediacy and clarity of these songs is actually unsettling. And it's this nexus of open-wound passion and contradictory world views that add up to the central role that the song "Imagine" plays in the canon of Lennon's recordings.

Much like the popular misreading of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." as a patriotic anthem, it's easy to bury the intentions of "Imagine" under a few carefully selected lines and that magnificent melody. But to seriously consider the implications of a world with no heaven and hell and -- now more than ever -- with "nothing to kill or die for/And no religion, too" is a truly radical act. Accepting of both Lennon's utopian and hard-bitten philosophy and binding them in a precise and unforgettable song, "Imagine" is entirely worthy of the accolades and reverence it receives, but it's seldom recognized for the tough challenges that it issues to us all.

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