What John Lennon referred to as “tarts and fags” are egocentric, bourgeois liberals – rebellious in their youth – while eventually becoming just like their parents and a part of the very system that they once claimed to hate. Having to contend with these faggy pseudo-socialist liberals and middle class anarchists is still a problem today. – PC

What do you think the effect was of the Beatles on the history of Britain?:

I don’t know about the “history”; the people who are in control and in power, and the class system and the whole bullshit bourgeoisie is exactly the same, except there is a lot of fag middle class kids with long, long hair walking around London in trendy clothes, and Kenneth Tynan is making a fortune out of the word “fuck.” Apart from that, nothing happened. We all dressed up, the same bastards are in control, the same people are runnin’ everything. It is exactly the same.

We’ve grown up a little, all of us, there has been a change and we’re all a bit freer and all that, but it’s the same game. Shit, they’re doing exactly the same thing, selling arms to South Africa, killing blacks on the street, people are living in fucking poverty, with rats crawling over them. It just makes you puke, and I woke up to that too.

The dream is over. It’s just the same, only I’m thirty, and a lot of people have got long hair. That’s what it is, man, nothing happened except that we grew up, we did our thing–just like they were telling us. You kids–most of the so called “now generation” are getting a job. We’re a minority, you know, people like us always were, but maybe we are a slightly larger minority because of maybe something or other.

Source: John Lennon’s Rolling Stone interview, January 21, 1971 (Part 2)

Regarding Lennon’s song, “Working Class Hero”:

It’s really just revolutionary. I think its concept is revolutionary, and I hope it’s for workers and not for tarts and fags. I hope it’s what “Give Peace A Chance” was about, but I don’t know. On the other hand, it might just be ignored.

I think it’s for the people like me who are working class–whatever, upper or lower–who are supposed to be processed into the middle classes, through the machinery, that’s all. It’s my experience, and I hope it’s just a warning to people. I’m saying it’s a revolutionary song; not the song itself but that it’s a song for the revolution.

Source: John Lennon’s Rolling Stone interview, January 21, 1971 (Part 1)