A Thousand Words on The Who

Photo by Mark and Colleen Hayward

For several years, The Who had always remained in the back of my mind. They were lodged somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd in the line-up of “English bands I’m never going to get into, because so many people like them that there isn’t a point in me even giving them a chance”. Though a short list this was, it only took about four short years for all three of the bands to be crossed off it. 

The most major memory I have of The Who pre-middle school is sitting in the backseat of my dad’s car, probably listening to the SiriusXm station 70s on 7. I can’t remember where we were going, or how old I was, but I do remember what was playing on the radio: “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Already I was harboring a dislike for this song, because they seemed to play it constantly and because I thought it droned on for an inconsiderate amount of time (inconsiderate to the listener, at least). 

But what I most remember about this Who incident in the car was the song ending. Not the song literally ending and transitioning into the next, but the final lyric of the song: “meet the new boss/same as the old boss”. I heard that and thought to myself, “that’s stupid”, and looked forward to hearing those words again in the future so I could have a quiet little laugh to myself about nothing. The least I can say for myself is that I understand what that lyric means now. 

The second major memory I have of The Who occurred when I was in eighth grade. I was in orchestra class talking to the substitute teacher about music, and I said to her something along the lines of, “I like The Who, but I don’t have the time to get into them.” 

Whatever “time” I was talking about is a mystery (and whatever it was I certainly have a lot less of it now), but I suspect that since I was, at the time, heavily into The Kinks but had not yet listened to their entire discography front-to-back, I felt I could not allow myself to move on to another band until I was through with them. This plan completely backfired, as I was already actually listening to The Who by freshman year. 

Unlike with Cheap Trick, there was nothing about The Who’s image that particularly drew me to them, and based on what tunes of theirs were allotted air time, there wasn’t particularly anything about their sound that made up for it. If anything, I found their image off-putting. 

It is no secret among fans of the band that The Who are not quite the lookers. In most photos they looked awkward and off-putting, and in others they looked absolutely insane. Instead of the band being made up of decently attractive people, it is just faces you inevitably get used to looking at, which is surprising that you get used to looking at them at all. 

But luckily, The Who had something even better to offer me than pretty faces to gaze at: a perfect time-capsule of teenage disillusionment. 

My favorite Who song has been “The Kids are Alright” for longer than I can remember, and my favorite album of theirs has been “Quadrophenia” since sometime during my sophomore year of high school. There was something so refreshing in hearing my own anxieties be projected back at me across time, to know that, contrary to what the adults around me had led to believe, they had at one point experienced the same inner turmoil and frustration with the world. Instead of having to trust my parents to not belittle my attempts at discussing old wounds, I could outsource it and find closure in The Who. 

The funny thing about this was that, when I started purposefully listening to the band, I had a bit of a dislike of Pete Townshend. Somewhere along the line the seed had been planted in my brain that Pete Townshend was nothing more than a pretentious asshole who shouldn’t even be given the time of day, that he was right up there with the other snobs of rock music and should be neglected in favor of the equally tragic figure Keith Moon or the underdog frontman Roger Daltrey. 

I can’t say exactly where along the line my opinion of Pete Townshend changed. I suspect I just listened to too many of his songs and something finally stuck that he was actually just as good as people said he was. I’m sure “The Who By Numbers” was the tipping point. 

It is difficult to pin down what specifically in the lyrics drew me to “The Who By Numbers”. I wasn’t a recovering alcoholic (“However Much I Booze”), the music industry wasn’t becoming increasingly detrimental to my emotional, physical and spiritual well-being (various cuts), and I wasn’t having to cope with various sexual problems (“Dreaming from the Waist”). I suppose that just speaks volumes to the virtuosity Townshend displays in his songwriting, that fourteen year-old me thought they were so worthwhile (and “However Much I Booze” is still one of my favorite Who songs, by the way). 

Another factor of The Who that must’ve redeemed them in my young, impressionable mind was that the band’s inner politics were positively rife with drama–they were absolutely riddled with it. There is nothing more fascinating to a teenager than band drama. 

While, most of it can, of course, be boiled down to the animosity between Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, it seems that violence was just a fundamental part of The Who’s nature. The countless stories of hotel rooms being destroyed, the anger depicted in their songs, and the legendary smashings of guitars all worked concurrently to entice me further and further into their music and their history (even if I don’t have a fantastic working memory of it). And, truly, is there a better way to get teens to like you then with violence?