4/1/2023 0 Comments The who my generation![]() ![]() Fans had a hard time forgiving the spokesmen of angry youth for getting old, and the band seems to have had a difficult time forgiving themselves. The public began to feel that the band had simply overstayed its welcome. People try to put us d-down (talkin bout my generation) Just because we get around (talkin bout my generation) Things they do look awful. While "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Love, Reign O'er Me" are simply sublime, much of the Who's '70s material is bogged down by the band's internal conflicts and Townshend's downward spiral into alcohol and drug abuse. Emboldened by Tommy's success, Townshend's songwriting became increasingly self-centered and confessional. In one fell swoop, the band upgraded their standing from "average Joe's" to intelligentsia. Roger Daltrey's perilous mic-swinging, Pete Townshend's ill-tempered guitar-smashing, and Keith Moon's "gonzo" drumming all bolstered the band's thuggish, working-class youth image - and suggested it was more than image.Īs Mod's heyday waned, Townshend began pushing the band in more adventurous directions, which culminated in the first proper Rock Opera, Tommy (1969). Playing up tensions between young and old in teen anthems "My Generation," "The Kids Are Alright," and a cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues," this combativeness quickly became the band's hallmark. However, perhaps its greatest achievement was to convince The Who that being ’orrible would be no impediment to success.More than any band before them, the Who transformed rock 'n' roll into the weapon of choice for the generation gap struggles of the 1960s. Punk before punk, it helped empower a generation, and made possible many exciting things to come. A hit parade smash, it became The Who’s insignia, which, by the time of 1970’s Live At Leeds recording, when Townshend was 30, was already beginning to sit uncomfortably. My Generation anthemised the new attitude of youth – and there’s the rub. ![]() Meanwhile, the worst those bad boy Stones could muster in autumn 1965 was, “Hey, you, get off of my cloud.” My Generation’s blunt language was shockingly alien to pop: not only did a cocksure Daltrey command everyone to f-f-fade away (ie fuck off), but in the startling “I hope I die before I get old…” he looks forward to an early death, presumably to escape the fate of becoming a boring Establishment fart – an even more extraordinary statement in light of the still-fresh human sacrifice of WWII. They summon a cyclone of anger, frustration and arrogance made of Townshend’s frantic downstrokes, Entwistle’s ludicrously flashy bass solo and Moon’s furious drumming, ending with what sounds like the destruction of his kit. Riled, the guitarist sought revenge…Īn early Townshend home demo of the song shows most of its key compositional elements in place, but the powerful recording eventually nailed at IBC studios on October 13, 1965, underlines the transformative power of The Who as a group. For all its eventual violence, the song’s other inspiration was faintly comical: Townshend’s car, a black Packard hearse, had been towed away from its Mayfair parking spot on the orders of the Queen Mother, whom it had apparently offended. Townshend wrote My Generation on a train journey sometime in the early summer of ’65 with, he says, Mose Allison’s Young Man’s Blues playing in his head (see page 79). And The Who’s third single would be the first pop record to fully articulate that gulf between old and new. Their parents would never understand their lives (sex, pills, pop music, affluence) and they would never understand their parents’ (duty, sacrifice, death, trauma). It’s an important nuance: his breed of ’60s teenager, the Mods, were the first true post-war generation. This means that, unlike The Beatles’ John Lennon – born during the Liverpool blitz – or the Stones’ Keith Richards – who claims debris from a Doodlebug landed in his cot – the guitarist has no trace memory of World War II. Pete Townshend is fond of recalling that he was born just a week or so after the Nazis’ surrender in May 1945. On October 13, 1965, The Who recorded My Generation at London’s IBC Studios and post-war youth found its voice. ![]()
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