The Who part 2

The transition to a hit-making band with original material, encouraged by Lambert, their manager, did not sit well with Daltrey, and a recording session of R&B covers went unreleased. The Who were not close friends either, apart from Moon and Entwistle, who enjoyed visiting nightclubs together in the West End of London. The group experienced a difficult time when touring Denmark in September, which culminated in Daltrey throwing Moon's amphetamines down the toilet and assaulting him. Immediately on returning to Britain, Daltrey was sacked, but was reinstated on the condition that the group became a democracy without his dominant leadership.

Yesterday we left the Who with two Top 10 singles, waiting for the one that would catapult them to superstardom. The single that accomplished this was their third hit single, My Generation.

You know how there are annotations in classical music and opera as to how a piece is to be intepreted, like "allegro ma non troppo", "andante", etc? Well, the annotation that should go with My Generation should be "singer high on speed".

If Daltrey wasn't high on speed when he recorded My Generation, he certainly gave a very good impression of being. "Why don't you all f-fade away, and don't try to dig what we all s-s-say" he sings. The song is a proclamation of intent, or a message to the older generation, if you will: "Don't bother to contemplate whether you accept us or reject us, because we reject you first." And then there is that famous line: "I hope I die before I get old" that inspired thousands of youth to take up flirting with death, and sometimes sadly succeeding.

My Generation peaked at #2 in the UK. It was kept from being #1 by the Seekers' The Carnival Is Over. In retrospect, as much as I like the Seekers, the songs have always been beyond comparison; they're in a different league altogether. Think of how many even remember The Carnival Is Over today, versus how many people still think of My Generation as one of the greatest songs ever written.

On 5 November 1965 their first album, also called My Generation, was released. Except for the title track, it contained two more hit singles. They weren't big hits, because they were released by their former producer, Shel Talmy, an attempt to sabotage the release of the band's chosen single Substitute. Not surprisingly, they were not supported by the Who themselves, hence the low chart positions. They were good songs though.

The subject of the song A Legal Matter is divorce and it marks the first time Townshend sang lead vocals, rather than Roger Daltrey, possibly because the song was too close to home for Daltrey who was divorcing his wife at the time. The critics weren't enamored with Pete's vocal's. According to Allmusic critic Stewart Mason, "adenoidal whine actually makes the singer sound like he's sneaking out in the dead of night, scared to death that his wife's going to catch him."

The Kids Are Alright was much, much better. In fact it was one of their greats, another teen anthem, in the fashion of My Generation. In 2006, the song was listed at #34 in Pitchfork's list of the 200 greatest songs of the 1960s.

After falling out with Talmy, The Who were signed to Robert Stigwood's label, Reaction, and released Substitute early in 1966. The song gave us a more mature band, both musically as well as lyrically. The use of an acoustic 12-string guitar was inspired. The lyrics were all about an existential question that would appear in many of The Who's songs; are we what we think we are, are we what other people perceive us to be, or are we something else altogether? In Substitute the composer feels like he's a phony, a pale copy of an ideal someone else. The song was a hit, peaking at #2 in the Netherlands and at #5 in the UK.

In 2006, Pitchfork ranked Substitute at #91 on the "200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s".

Their next non-album single, released in mid-1966 was their second #2 in the UK. It dealt with the sensitive subject of children being forced in gender roles that do not agree with them. I'm A Boy was originally intended to be a part of a Rock Opera called 'Quads' which was to be set in the future where parents can choose the sex of their children. The idea was later scrapped, but this song survived and was later released as a single.

The song is about a family who "order" four girls, but a mistake is made and three girls and one boy are delivered instead. The boy dreams of partaking in sports and other boy-type activities, but his mother forces him to act like his sisters and refuses to believe the truth ("I'm a boy, I'm a boy, but my Mum won't admit it"). In retrospect, I'm A Boy may have been Townshend's first public airing of the child abuse that he had suffered.

Their next non-album single (in the UK), released late 1966 made #3 in the UK, but as far as international chart performance was concerned, it was an even bigger hit than My Generation. It was their first hit in American Top 40, peaking at #24. It was #1 in Canada, their first #1 in any major market.

The song features Roger Daltrey on lead vocals with John Entwistle singing the first verse, making it one of the few songs composed by Pete Townshend to feature Entwistle on lead vocals. Author Mike Segretto describes Daltrey's vocal as "imitating Burl Ives." At the tail end of Happy Jack, Townshend can be heard shouting "I saw you!", and it is said that he was noticing drummer Keith Moon trying to join in surreptitiously to add his voice to the recording, something the rest of the band disliked.

According to some sources, Townshend reported the song is about a man who slept on the beach near where Townshend vacationed as a child. Children on the beach would laugh at the man and once buried him in the sand. However, the man never seemed to mind and only smiled in response. Greg Littmann interprets the song as a possible reaction to alienation, as Jack allows "the cruelty of other people slide off his back."

Despite its chart success, Who biographer Greg Atkins describes the song as being the band's weakest single to that point. Daltrey reportedly thought the song sounded like a "German oompah song." But Chris Charlesworth praised the "high harmonies, quirky subject matter" and "fat bass and drums that suspend belief." Charlesworth particularly praised Moon's drumming for carrying not just the beat, but also the melody itself, in what he calls "startlingly original fashion."

Meanwhile, the group continued to have conflict; on 20 May, Moon and Entwistle were late to a gig having been on the Ready Steady Go! set with The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston. During My Generation, Townshend attacked Moon with his guitar; Moon suffered a black eye and bruises, and he and Entwistle left the band, but changed their minds and rejoined a week later. Moon kept looking for other work, and Jeff Beck had him to play drums on his song Beck's Bolero (with Page, John Paul Jones and Nicky Hopkins) because he was "trying to get Keith out of the Who".

To alleviate financial pressure on the band, Lambert arranged a song-writing deal which required each member to write two songs for the next album. Entwistle contributed Boris the Spider and Whiskey Man and found a niche role as second songwriter. The band found they needed to fill an extra ten minutes, and Lambert encouraged Townshend to write a longer piece, A Quick One, While He's Away. The suite of song fragments is about a girl who has an affair while her lover is away, but is ultimately forgiven. The album was titled A Quick One (Happy Jack in the US), and reached #4 in the UK charts.

A Quick One, While He's Away has six distinct movements. The brief harmonised a cappella intro is titled "Her Man's Gone". The "Crying Town" section is sung by Roger Daltrey in an atypical low register. Daltrey also sings "We Have a Remedy" in his more usual voice. John Entwistle plays "Ivor the Engine Driver" in that section. Then comes "Soon Be Home", another harmonised section. Finally, "You Are Forgiven" is sung by Pete Townshend.

This song is The Who's first publicised venture into the Rock Opera genre and a precursor to their later, more ambitious project, Tommy.

Townshend reveals in his 2012 autobiography, Who I Am, that A Quick One While He's Away briefly refers to his molestation as a child, but not explicitly. "Ivor The Engine Driver" is said by Townshend to be a metaphor for the possible abuser. The "Her Man's Been Gone" section refers to Townshend's separation from his parents and spending time with his grandmother, Denny. The crying in the "Crying Town" portion is his own, for his parents to pick him up and to leave Denny, who is said by Townshend to have been the person who brought in unknown men into her home. The "little girl" referred to in his song is actually a make-believe "imaginary constant friend" and "twin girl who suffered every privation I suffered." The "You Are Forgiven" presents someone coming to Townshend's rescue: his mother. The lyric about sitting on Ivor the Engine Driver's lap "and later with him had a nap" also hints at what may have happened. The song ends with the verbal chant of "you are forgiven", which Townshend states that when The Who performed the song, he would always get into a frenzy. He states that those who were being forgiven was everyone referred to in the song's lyrics, including himself.

He told Mojo: The Who were not at their peak exactly, but with "the mini opera", we were just about starting to tap into something that became a complete obsession for me. Which was that when we played a hard-driving Rock 'n' Roll and brought in this slightly evangelical, hippy, spiritual thing – at the end of our piece, I'm shouting, "You are forgiven, you are forgiven, you are forgiven" – that there would be a kind of spiritual rush in the audience that was obviously there to be tapped into. Rock 'n' Roll had always been below the belt stuff, and that was something else.

Also in this album, Boris the Spider, a song written by The Who's bass guitarist, John Entwistle, is reported to have been Jimi Hendrix's favorite song by the Who.

The chorus of Boris the Spider was sung in basso profundo by Entwistle, with a middle eight of "creepy crawly" sung in falsetto. These discordant passages and the black comedy of the theme made the song a stage favorite.

Also in this album, So Sad About Us, a song originally written for The Merseys, has likely been covered more frequently than any other song on the album. Beyond the sheer number of covers, it is also one of The Who's most frequently imitated songs. With its ringing guitars, Beach Boys-styled harmonies, crashing drums, and lovelorn lyrics, it is one of the early forebears of the Power Pop genre, along with other early Who staples such as I Can't Explain and The Kids Are Alright.

Their first single for 1967 was an ode to teenage masturbation. Pictures of Lily was yet another non-album single that peaked at #4 in the UK. Townshend coined the term "Power Pop" when he used it to describe the song in a May 1967 interview with NME.

In the beginning of the song, the singer laments his inability to sleep. When his father gives him the pictures of the song's eponymous Lily, he feels better, and is able to sleep. Soon, he feels desire for Lily as a person instead of a photo, and asks his father for an introduction. His father informs him however that "Lily" has, in fact, been dead since 1929. Initially, the singer laments, but before long turns back to his fantasy. The song probably refers to Lily (or Lillie) Langtry, the music hall star, who did die in 1929, the year mentioned in the song.

At the end of 1967, The Who released their third studio album, called The Who Sell Out. It is a concept album, formatted as a collection of unrelated songs interspersed with faux commercials and public service announcements. The album purports to be a broadcast by pirate radio station Radio London. Part of the intended irony of the title was that The Who were making commercials during that period of their career, some of which are included as bonus tracks on the remastered CD.

The Who Sell Out received widespread acclaim from critics, some of whom viewed it as The Who's best record and one of the greatest albums of all time. A couple of months before the album's release, the first (and only) single from it hit the stores. I Can See for Miles was the band's only Top 10 hit in the US, peaking at #9 (#4 in Canada and #10 in the UK).

The song, telling the story of a stalker-y guy with extraordinary eyesight, was recorded in several separate sessions in studios across two continents, and was greatly beloved by the critics; It is ranked #40 on Dave Marsh's "The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made", #37 on NME's "The Top 100 Singles of All-Time", #162 on Pitchfork Media's "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s", and #258 on Rolling Stone magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Even so, Pete Townshend was disappointed. He had written the song in 1966 but had held it back as an "ace in the hole", believing it would be The Who's first number one single. He is quoted as saying, "To me it was the ultimate Who record, yet it didn't sell. I spat on the British record buyer."

Another great song in this album was Tattoo. A "rite of passage" song, Tattoo tells the story of two teenaged brothers who decide to get tattoos in their attempts to become men. Themes of the song include peer pressure to conform and young men's insecurity about their manhood. The song has been heavily praised by critics.

The opening track, Armenia City in the Sky, was The Who's answer to the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows. A crazily inventive song, unusually for The Who it wasn't written by Townshend but by Speedy Keen, the guy who wrote Something in the Air for Thunderclap Newman. Before joining Thunderclap Newman, Keen shared a flat with and worked as a chauffeur for Pete Townshend. This was the only song The Who ever performed that was specifically written for the group by a non-member. Keen also shares vocals with Daltrey.

After a song about masturbation, here's a song about hand jobs. Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand ("What they've done to her man, those shaky hands" the lyrics go), was a hit with the critics: The song has a melody described by Allmusic's Mark Deming as "charming" and "a tune you couldn't forget even if you tried". Author John Atkins describes the song as a "delightful Pop song in the Everly Brothers mold", while Charlesworth suggests that, regardless of the lyrics, the song "would have been a winner on melody alone". Grantley and Parker describe the vocals as a cross between The Mamas and the Papas and Simon and Garfunkel.

Another great song from this album is Our Love Was. Townshend is on lead vocals:

The closing track of the album was Rael (1 and 2). This song is where elements for the upcoming Rock Opera Tommy began to evolve.

Meanwhile, Moon, who was the inspiration for Animal on The Muppet Show, developed a taste for cherry bombs. Entwistle said the first cherry bomb they tried "blew a hole in the suitcase and the chair". Moon recalled his first attempt to flush one down the toilet: "All that porcelain flying through the air was quite unforgettable. I never realised dynamite was so powerful."

During an appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, miming to I Can See For Miles and My Generation, Moon bribed a stage hand to put explosives in his drum kit, who loaded it with ten times the expected quantity. The resulting detonation threw Moon off his drum riser and his arm was cut by flying cymbal shrapnel. Townshend's hair was singed and his left ear left ringing, and a camera and studio monitor were destroyed.

I thought I could complete The Who story today, but no such luck. So we'll get to talk about a handful of very special albums tomorrow. For today, let's finish with Magic Bus: a song written by Pete Townshend during the time that My Generation was being recorded in 1965, but not recorded until 1968. It has become one of the band's most popular songs and has been a concert staple, although when released, the record only reached #26 in the United Kingdom and #25 in the United States.