Tag Archives: a quick one

#1233: The Who – So Sad About Us

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Another track from The Who’s A Quick One. ‘So Sad About Us’ is a number that I don’t think I paid much attention to when I first heard that album way back in the early 2010s. Other cuts like ‘Boris the Spider’ and ‘See My Way’ were much more to my liking. The latter’s considered to be one of the weaker songs on there, but I’ve always dug it. But at that time, ‘So Sad About Us’ had its own Wikipedia page, so I gathered it must be quite important in some way. According to it, the song’s one of the Who’s most covered songs, with people like The Breeders and The Jam having their own takes on it. It wasn’t until I saw a live performance of the track the Who did (below) maybe only a few years ago that I thought I should maybe give the album version another listen.

Before The Who started getting into making albums with concepts in mind, the music becoming sort of artsy and extravagant as a result, their first two records showcased Pete Townshend’s abilities to write “simple” catchy 3-minute power pop wonders. You think of ‘My Generation’, ‘Substitute’, ‘The Kids Are Alright’. Things of that nature. ‘So Sad…’ falls into that category. It’s a strong performance by the four respective band members, and is more of their straighter numbers by Who standards. The rhythm section is usually the highlight in many a Who song, but I’d say ‘So Sad…’ relies more on the clanging guitar chords and the vocals/harmonies carried out by Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle.

It’s a break-up song, a topic that you rarely ever find in The Who’s catalogue, from the point of view of a narrator who’s upset by the whole situation. No malice is felt toward the other person. There’s no sense of bitterness. Just an honest account of acceptance that time has run out and the relationship is over. The track is two verses, a bridge and a repeat of the first verse surrounded by a memorable refrain of la-la-la’s, but to spice things up a little there’s a key change that occurs nearing the end. Just a general fan of how the song’s executed, to be honest, there’s not much else I can say. Although it’s one of their most covered tracks, I still feel like it’s underappreciated in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure there are a lot of people who don’t know about the song’s existence. But it does, and it’s great.

#1169: The Who – See My Way

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Early 2010s I was discovering The Who. What started out as a small interest in watching their music videos on YouTube turned into me downloading a few of their albums and becoming a huge fan overall. Way I remember it, I started with The Who Sell Out onto Quadrophenia, Who’s Next, The Who by Numbers and then Who Are You. Must have been weary about Tommy for some reason, ’cause I didn’t listen to that till much later. But after finishing Who Are You and knowing that it was Keith Moon’s last album on drums and things were never the same after, it made sense to go back in their discography. This is all where the song ‘See My Way’ comes in.

‘See My Way’ is a song on the band’s second album, A Quick One, and is one of the rare, rare, rare occasions where lead singer Roger Daltrey is credited as a songwriter in the band’s list of albums. In fact, it might be the only one. At least with no help from anyone else. And you can sort of tell that it’s not the kind that Pete Townshend would write, or even John Entwistle. You’ll come across simple rhymes like way/day (“way” is rhymed with itself three times in the first verse alone), you/do/true, bad/mad. It goes on that way. Nothing too much to get you thinking like Townshend would usually aim to do with his pen game. Some may find it rather forgettable. But that’s not me. I’ve always got a kick from it.

The track’s message is a bit like The Beatle’s ‘We Can Work It Out’. Just without the “Life is very short for fussing and fighting bit.” Like Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey wants this other person to concede defeat, possibly in an argument or something, it’s not very specific, and as they’re too stubborn to do so, he’s not afraid to cut ties with them and to come back around until they finally admit that they were wrong in the first place. Bit of a selfish tone to it, but it’s set to this galloping rhythm, achieved by replacing some of Keith Moon’s drums with cardboard boxes and a returning melodic phrase (first by vocals, then by horns) that make it all very catchy, indeed. Sounds like Daltrey and Entwistle are singing together on this one too, and I think you hear the latter’s more in the ‘Tried so hard’ sections. So that’s nice too.

My iPod #125: The Who – Boris the Spider

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One time when I was bored on YouTube, I remembered this cartoon from the nineties that would show on the BBC. The cartoon followed the adventures of a clumsy spider, who played around with his human friend. I completely forgot what the animation was called, until I found the other day that it was simply called “Spider”.

During that time, I typed in ‘spider’ which instead resulted in videos involving real spiders and “Boris the Spider” by The Who. The video above was the one that I clicked onto.

This time, it’s not a song by Pete Townshend. No, no. “Boris the Spider” was the second song on the band’s second album “A Quick One” which is known for being the only album by the rock band to involve songs written by all four members. “Boris” was the first song John Entwistle wrote for the band, and took a tolling time of five minutes to write.

Seems about right. It’s a tale of a black, hairy and very small spider, who crawls up a wall then drops to the floor, heads toward the bedroom door, comes out again, crawls into a ball and is then squashed with a book by the person who sees all of this activity. The spider’s name is Boris too. And all of this is sung over a simple bass line and a haunting bridge where John puts on his falsetto.

This song is also known for being the first in music history to incoporate the ‘death growl’. Betcha didn’t know that, huh?

So that’s the song for today. That fake spider in the video is very similar to one that I saw on my living room floor the other day. I was so freaked out wandering what to kill it with that it disappeared under the sofa. That bastard hasn’t come out since. It’s only a matter of time.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.