The trouble with political rock is if it is too specific it has a shelf life and if it is too general it is fuzzy.
Two Lennon songs come to mind. “John Sinclair” -one of his agitpop songs during the Some Time In New York City era and “Give Peace A Chance”, during his bed-in phase.
John Sinclair is a perfect pop song with its “gotta-gotta-gotta” hook. Sinclair was jailed for ten years for giving two joints (for free) to an undercover cop. Around a week after he wrote it, Sinclair was set free so while a good song it hasn’t really lasted too well because it was too specific.
“Give Peace A Chance” is the opposite of “John Sinclair” -everything but the title line is is irrelevant and the title line is so anthemic it because the soundtrack to the peace movement.
Lennon is considered a genius because of strokes like this. It is his rare ability to make a general emotion personal, turn the objective, subjective. Sometimes, “Power To The people” for instance, it worked against him but when he got it right, “Imagine”, “All You Need Is Love”, “Give Peace A Chance” he was a political songwriter on a par with Woody Guthrie and better at real politik than with Strummer or Dylan.
Because, really, maybe it might be worth while giving peace a chance, right?