The Who, Quadrophenia

[randy_byers]

One of the things I did when I was putting together a comp of favorite '70s songs last week was download the Who's Quadrophenia, which is from 1973. It was one of my favorite albums when I was a young man, but it had been years since I listened to it. I always liked it better than the Who's other rock opera, Tommy, even though Tommy probably has better individual songs. Tommy is a twisted little fable about abuse and power, but the thing I loved about Quadrophenia is that it's a meditation on adolescent confusion. I could relate personally, even though it's about a character from a very different background than mine. It's also very much about the sea, and the character's relationship to the sea was something I strongly identified with at the time. The beach is a place where a man can feel/he's the only soul in the world that's real.

Listening to it again now as a middle-aged man, I'm struck by how deftly it articulates issues of class as well as of identity and growing pains. It's definitely a working class story, with a lot of naturalistic detail set in a particular time and place in Britain in the 1960s.

They finally threw me out
My mother got drunk on stout,
My dad couldn't stand on two feet,
As he lectured about morality.
Now I guess the family's complete,
With me hanging round on the street
Or here on the beach.

The music suffers a little bit from pretentiousness, but it still has a nice layered dreaminess, full of ambient noise (waves crashing, seagulls crying, buses braking, machines grinding, radio news voices, etc.). Again, none of the songs really stands out on its own, but the whole of the album is greater than the parts. The way that various themes and melodies are woven into different songs works really well. The range of expression that Daltrey brings to the vocals is amazing.

And it still rocks the conflicted adolescent confusion.

Zoot suit, white jacket with side vents
Five inches long.
I'm out on the street again
And I'm leaping along.
I'm dressed right for a beachfight,
But I just can't explain
Why that uncertain feeling is still
Here in my brain.

Update: From a wonderful piece about the album in the Guardian:

By the start of the 60s, there was a generation of young British men newly liberated from some of the constraints of the previous decade. They were released from the obligation of national service, they had jobs and no family commitments, and so money to spare, and if they lacked immediate cash they could always buy stuff on hire purchase, recently inaugurated in order to get the consumer boom going. Mods had no time for the stifling popular music put out over the radio - the syrup served up by "entertainers" such as Max Bygraves and Frank Ifield. They looked to America for music, and to Italy and France for fashion. Musicians such as Townshend, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, the Stones, the Animals, were deeply enamoured of American blues and early Motown: Mose Allison, Marvin Gaye, James Brown.

These days, one tends to think of the 60s as a decade in which only near its end - when, say, the Beatles went long-haired and yogic, and when political rebellion announced itself explicitly - did the great rift become apparent which separated those born before and after the second world war. But the mods were pioneers for the hippies, and had already declared an absolute break with their parents' values. In place of thrift and conformity and rectitude - the values that had helped win the war - they put decadence, rock music and partying. They had their own bands, chief of which was the High Numbers, later named the Who, and their own venues for live music, such as the Marquee and the Scene in London, and the Aquarium ballroom in Brighton. They danced, and took plenty of drugs, mainly amphetamines ("pills", "leapers", "uppers", "purple hearts"); Barnes reported that the Marquee had a big sign that read "SPEED KILLS".

Comments

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

The movie's worth seeing, too; apparently not currently available on Region 1 DVD though.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I saw it in the theater when it came out and remember finding it more downbeat than the album. I'd like to see it again sometime.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I didn't like Quadrophenia when it came out because I was too much of a music snob. However, I like it much better now, and in fact bought the CDs a few years ago. Haven't listened to it in a while, though.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Not punk enough, eh? I wondered what your feelings about the Who were, because I wasn't sure we've ever talked about them. Now I vaguely think we've talked about Quadrophenia before, maybe around the time you picked up the CDs. (Which I just yesterday bought for my eldest nephew, because I think he's the perfect age for it.)