Horton Hears The Who

So, I've got myself one of those jobs. Because I have to, because I've got those bills. And at said job, I share an office with a supervisor. And to survive the hours in said office, I play music, sometimes the music of a band called The Who. And The Thing about The Who is that, if you play them quietly, then what's the fucking point?

Which is the very question she asked me one day. "Why The Who?"

And I could hear Roger Daltrey sing, "Now tell me why The Whoooo."

And upon hearing that melody ("Who Are You," for those of you lacking my incredible imagination), I realized that CSI's worst victim ever has been The Who. Let's investigate that crime, that these rock anthems have been reduced to TV themes. When did Mike Post leave the scene? CSI uses the above mentioned. CSI: Miami uses “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” And the New York unit gets “Baba O’ Riley.” If they open another franchise, will they use “Squeeze Box”? Or maybe they’ll set one in Alabama and use “Going Mobile”?

So it's not my coworker's fault she doesn't have a clue. I gotta lay it out montage-style a la William Petersen.

Because of my frustration at our society lowering art, because I need to have a job and pay bills and be supervised – well, that's a pretty good start at explaining why The Who.

Real rock-n-roll was always about rebellion and the frustration of youth. Take Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” for example. You got dads and bosses and congressmen giving you guff, and all you want to do is borrow the car so you can take your girl out. And it’s no coincidence that The Who covers that very song on Live At Leeds, and when they do, it’s amplified in all ways.

And The Who were the F-f-f-Francis Scott Keys of writing anthems to the revolutionary cause. Is anybody writing anthems anymore? (That’s a whole other write-up/rant.) “My Generation” was the Declaration of Independence in the 60s Revolution against the Establishment. And it was a violent, caucophonous riot that birthed punk rock a decade or so later.

“Won’t Get Fooled Again” was not only on the surface about revolution, but with Roger Daltrey’s primal scream in the middle of the song, it became a song about the frustration of realizing that all the fighting was fruitless. The new boss was the same as the old boss.

By the way, if I could voice my existential angst with screams like that, I wouldn’t need therapy.

“The Seeker,” too, was about the hopelessness of even bothering to try. “I won’t get to get what I’m after, ‘til the day I die,” laments Roger. Which, by the way, he hopes is before he gets old, and who can blame him when he faces such dread?

And where’d a British band get such French philosophy?

The frustration wasn’t all so academic. Much of it was just blue balls, looking for relief via Maryanne’s shaky hand or from some pornographic “Pictures of Lily”. Why are the guys so eager to buy that “Magic Bus” to see their girl? And what’s worse than begging, “I want it, I want it, I want it,” and then being adamantly told, “You cannnnn’t have it!”?

The Who set Freudian problems to a Maximum R&B beat. It was Greek tragedy the kids could dance to. No where is it more obvious than in Tommy, their magnum opus about a boy who’s stricken deaf, dumb, and blind to repress having witnessed his father jealously killing his mother’s lover, who happens to be the boy’s uncle. I’m not sure if it’s his paternal uncle or maternal. And the boy’s then exposed to religion, acid, sex, an abusive cousin, and another uncle who molests him. I’m not sure what side of the family they’re from, either.

Or there’s the song “I’m A Boy,” in which Roger plays a kid whose parents wanted a girl and therefore dress him like one.

And the thing is, all of our parents fucked us up, even if for most of us, it was a little more subtle. I once lost the ability to taste “tangy” after being given a timeout.

For all the psychosexual BS The Who delved in, they always did it without an air of menace. They never sneered evilly like Jagger’s Devil or Morrison’s Lizard King, and they were never as overtly lascivious as Mick singing “Parachute woman, land on me tonight,” or Jim creeping in the back door. Pete Townshend was willing to write the emasculated male, the guy who was more threatened than a threat. In “Tattoo,” Roger, to prove his manhood, gets a tattoo with his brother, only to be beaten by his father for getting one that said “mother.”

The Who, especially Keith Moon, could play the fools onstage. Keith was a clown, even donning a jester’s cap. He and Pete became known for throwing climactic temper tantrums and trashing their instruments. With the exception of stolid bassist John Entwistle, they all exhibited show-offy flair, Keith with his windmill strumming arm, Roger with his lariat-like mic twirling, Keith with nothing but the bombast and eyebrows that inspired Animal. If I tried twirling a mic like that, I’d kill somebody.

They did everything with a sense of irony. When Pete first broke his guitar, it was a mistake, but he played it off like he meant to. When they released The Who Sell Out, they were sending up commercialism with phony advertisements, but they themselves were benefiting by being comped for plugging Premiere Drums. And when the bills for the totaled instruments stacked up and prevented them from using a string section on Townshend’s first rock opera, “A Quick One While He’s Away,” they instead sang “cello, cello, cello.” Tommy was about becoming free by blocking out external influences, but he was a pinball wizard because one of England’s big rock critics was a pinball fanatic.

I could write volumes on this, but volume speaks better. I’m not trying to write a Townshend libretto. Put on some Who and put it on loud. It’s cheaper than real therapy, although I’m waiting for the day when my shrink trashes her couch.