Tag Archives: the who

#1132: The Who – The Rock

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And here we are again. Another last song from an album that’ll be written about on here, but certainly not the last you’ll see from the band. Out of the 17 songs from The Who’s Quadrophenia, I’ve talked about ten of them, with ‘The Rock’ bringing it to a total of 11. Without looking back in those posts, I’m sure that I’ve mentioned in nearly all of them how the album is my favourite of the band’s. And I guess through that sentence, I’ve done it again. But it really is fantastic though. Was a teenager myself when I first heard it, and even though the story revolves around a character whose scene was very much of its time and place, the thoughts and feelings expressed in the lyrics are pretty much universal. Plus, the music’s top-notch. ‘The Rock’ arrives as the album’s penultimate track and the second instrumental song on there after the title track which appears earlier.

I prefer ‘The Rock’ to the ‘Quadrophenia’ song and always have done. They do almost mirror each other in terms of their structure, but the former comes at a climactic point in the album’s story, and as a result the music was made to be that little more intense. It’s here that the album’s protagonist Jimmy steals a boat and uses it to sail to a rock overlooking the sea, which is the rock referred to in the title, acting as the transitional piece between him having an almighty drug-fuelled rampage in ‘Doctor Jimmy’ and screaming for salvation in the album’s final track. Utilising the four musical themes established in the album that represent the individual members of the band, the instrumental is split into four/five sections. I’m telling you, it’s better to listen to than to read about, so maybe I won’t go through them all. Leave it to you to discover.

The best one however is clearly the ‘Helpless Dancer’ section that begins at 2:45, with Townshend’s guitar mirroring the vocal melody of that song while Keith Moon thrashes some serious thundering drum rolls on top. The vocoder-affected ‘Love Reign o’er Me’ refrain that pops in near the end is quite neat too. The track finishes with an explosive crash and the sound of thunder and rain, leading perfectly into the record’s closer. What amazed me, when the deluxe edition of the album was reissued in 2011, was finding out that the final version of the track was essentially ripped straight from Pete Townshend’s demo recording of it with John Entwistle and Keith Moon adding their respective bass guitar and drums on top. I don’t know, it just floored me. Goes to show that Townshend really was on something during the making of the record. And to think it’s not in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear book I have. Doesn’t make any sense to me.

#1099: The Who – The Real Me

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Goodness, the amount of times I’ve written about songs from The Who’s Quadrophenia on here. One of the most represented albums on this blog. But I can’t say anything else apart from it’s just that good. To me, anyway. Anyone who’s been reading these for the longest time will know how I feel about that record. There’s only one more song to be covered here, I swear, just if you were getting sick of all the Quadrophenia coverage. That should be coming relatively soon too, if you’re thinking about what track it could possibly be. Then that’ll be it. No more. Until then, though, I have to make some notes on the album’s outright introduction (following its opening overture) of ‘The Real Me’ where we’re introduced to the story’s main character, Jimmy, and all of his problems.

The premise of Quadrophenia is that this central character suffers from a multiple-personality disorder, four personalities which each possess characteristics of the four Who members, who’s trying to deal with this alongside handling familial and sexual relationships, and battling with his identity as a Mod of the 1960s. ‘The Real Me’ spells out to the listener that this narrator is not all that right, and we follow his journey for initial help as he asks his doctor, his mother and, finally, a preacher for any solution, to get to the bottom of what exactly is going on in his head. His questions are left unanswered by the end of it all, leaving the narrator with just a tad of unresolved confusion, leading into the album’s instrumental title track.

‘The Real Me’ hits right out of the gate, with aggressive guitar chords from Pete Townshend, a bustling drum pattern from Keith Moon, and an off-the-wall bass guitar performance by John Entwistle that he knocked out in the first take. Quoted that he was was only “joking around” when doing it, he certainly puts a different spin on laying a bass line under a song in the fact that it doesn’t really match a chord progression or follow any melodic element within the song. It’s truly a beast in itself. Very sure you can hear his fingers smacking the strings around 2:10 too. And plus, he’s also on those blasting horns that come through on the choruses too. The Who didn’t have splash out on those brass bands, Entwistle always had those covered. Daltrey’s trademark growling vocals have become even more pronounced following their last effort with Who’s Next, and I can always try and match the anger, the grit and overall attitude when I attempt to sing along myself. I even try to replicate that voice break on the final “Can you SeE the real me” before he roars out that “mother”at the end of the track. Suffice to say, it doesn’t end so well for me. If there’s another album opener that’s as full-throttle as this, I like to be pointed to its way. This one would take a beating.

#1084: The Who – Rael 1

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Around the summer of 2010, I properly started listening to The Who. The months up until that period of time were those in which I discovered the Beatles and really began my fascination with their music that continues to this day. So I’m thinking that my decision to check out The Who came from a throwaway thought of “What’s another ’60s band that people talk about? The Who? Wouldn’t do no harm to try them out.” And so I did. I was 15 then, and now at 28, albums like Quadrophenia and Who’s Next are such that I can’t imagine my life without. But really I think the first of the band’s albums that I sought to listen to was The Who Sell Out, the group’s third album, released in 1967. I saw its professional ratings on the Wikipedia page and the time and was surprised at how highly rated it seemed to be among critics and the like. Couldn’t be that great, surely? Well, it actually is. And its 1995 remix/reissue that added 10 more songs to the original tracklist further showcased just how on a roll the band appeared to be during those sessions. That’s the version I’m most accustomed to.

‘Rael 1’, originally titled ‘Rael (1 and 2)’ on the original 1967 release, would usually be the album’s closer, though with the 1995 issue there’s an added selection of bonus material recorded during the record’s production. The song was the result of what was initially going to be a much larger project – I believe, a rock opera – conceived by Pete Townshend, but pressure from the band’s record label to produce hit singles at a faster rate ground whatever plans Townshend had to a halt. So what we get is the much compressed version of his vision. Like the Who’s album closer on Sell Out‘s predecessor, ‘Rael 1’ is another mini-opera, consisting of separate musical movements to create one whole piece. But unlike the domestic relationship situation explored in ‘A Quick One…’, ‘Rael’ takes the subject matter to broader horizons, exploring a world in which China is the main power of the world and is on its way to conquer Israel. The track is told by an Israeli protagonist who wishes to return to his home and save his country against all odds.

Shame the idea didn’t get the full album treatment it needed. However, the whole idea of a rock opera was something that was very much on Townshend’s mind. We all know what arrived a couple years later. And if you don’t, well, the band made Tommy, which took the band’s popularity to a whole other level worldwide and took the group’s success to the greatest heights when for a moment it looked like the band were at a crossroads when Sell Out didn’t meet commercial expectations. There are plenty of musical ideas subtly presented in Sell Out that would appear again in the music of Tommy, and none arrive quite as clearly as they do here on ‘Rael 1’, with its final instrumental section being reused for ‘Sparks’. I’m sure Who fans got a kick out of hearing music that they were sure they’d heard before and revisiting Sell Out to find that it was there all along. Even though the music gets its own highlight in the form of ‘Sparks’, I recognise it more as the exciting instrumental passage that brings Sell Out to a cosmic end.

#1075: The Who – Pure and Easy

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Look at that. Another Who song. So, the consensual opinion is that Who’s Next is their best album, right? I mean, I’d agree it’s an outstanding piece of work. I think Quadrophenia‘s better, but we’ve been through all of this already. But did you know that Who’s Next started off as a completely different monster altogether? There’s a whole Wikipedia section dedicated to the Lifehouse project, envisioned by Pete Townshend to be another rock opera, following on from Tommy, this time with a more science-fiction take to it and accompanied with this thought-out live show performance experience. At least I think it was something along those lines. But because no one apart from him could understand the opera’s plot line, and so the whole thing was laid to the wayside except for eight of the nine songs that became the album we know today.

‘Pure and Easy’ was one of the tracks recorded during the Lifehouse/Who’s Next sessions. As part of the Lifehouse story, it was meant to act as something of the theme song for the opera’s protagonist and also introduced the concept of music/rock and roll being able to save the world – or something along that effect – that the opera’s plot was based on. Townshend has gone on record to state his great disappointment that the song wasn’t included on the final cut. It did however make a small appearance on there, with Daltrey singing a different take of the song’s first lines during the ending of ‘The Song Is Over’. Two versions of ‘Pure’ have been commercially released. There’s the take of the track that appeared on a Who’s Next reissue. It’s faster, and a lot of people like it for that reason alone. But the version that trumps that by many a mile in my eyes is the one that appeared in the band’s Odds & Sods compilation. It’s the one you can see up there. It’s slower, but the performance sounds massive in comparison.

Think it’s saying something about Townshend’s writing at the time that the band decided to leave this song in storage for so long. ‘Cause a track like this could be any other band’s greatest ever achievement. Lyrics aren’t my thing usually, but even here when I hear the words and read them, there’s a definite beauty and poetic feeling to them. “I listened and I heard music in a word/And words when you played your guitar/The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering/And a child flew past me riding in a star”. I mean, that’s a pretty cool set of lines, I think. And Daltrey sings ’em really nicely too. Track’s filled with these uplifting key changes and guitar hooks, there’s a massive change to a minor for the bridge, before switching back and finishing off with a rocking finale as Pete Townshend takes over the microphone, telling the listener to listen out for the note. Poorly typed out words can only do this one so much justice. Would suggest taking the time to hear it, really.

#1074: The Who – The Punk and the Godfather

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Been a long time since I’ve written about a track from Quadrophenia. Looking at my phone, it appears the previous song from it would have come in the ‘I’ series. Couldn’t even begin to remember what year I was doing that in. I’m sure I would have discussed how much the album means to me (for lack of any less melodramatic phrase) in at least one post out of the eight songs I’ve covered from there in the past. But I’ll sum it up here by saying simply it’s my favourite Who album by miles, came across it when I was 15 and feeling a bit lost and it seemed like the perfect soundtrack for the whole time. Plus, the four band members are firing on all cylinders on every cut. I’m a big fan of By Numbers too, but there is a reason why many a person including Pete Townshend himself regards Quadrophenia as the last great Who album.

The big point about Quadrophenia is that it’s a rock opera. One about a kid named Jimmy who’s a Mod, trying to find where he belongs in the Mod scene, all while having a sort of split personality disorder, separated into four different characters based on the four individuals of The Who. These four personalities also have their own individual musical motifs that will appear in one song, become the main refrain in another, before then appearing again as maybe a little melodic hook somewhere else. It’s a whole thing. You really should hear the record in its entirety. In the album’s fifth track, ‘The Punk and/meets the Godfather’, Jimmy goes to see a band to find some kind of inspiration in the dull life. The track takes on the narrative perspectives of who I think are the security letting the people into the venue, or the punks, and the performers onstage who try to possess the audience in the palms of their hands.

This might just be my favourite Who song. It’s definitely up there. Like I said earlier, every instrument strum/strike/finger pick is delivered with a ferocious urge. Those slamming beginning power chords set the scene, Keith Moon amps it up with his hectic drum fills. John Entwistle enters the frame by mimicking the strum pattern of the guitar chords on his bass guitar and they all fall together to allow Roger Daltrey to begin his vocal. Daltrey knocks it out the park here too. Upon the initial listen years ago, I thought another person began singing when it came to the “I’m the guy in the sky…” choruses. But it’s just him putting on a voice, I guess to just help him reach those notes. Townshend offers his own vocal during the song, coming in during the gentler, introspective bridge – one where he harmonises with himself too. After the final chorus, the dust settles with the melodic stuttering of ‘My generation’ among a twinkling acoustic guitar, a fantastic bass riff and the sound of an audience cheering. It’s like they’re applauding the song that’s just happened. In the story though, Jimmy’s left disappointed and disillusioned by it all. It’s a beautiful track. Might just listen to it right now.