The Who's "Quadrophenia" - A classic
Was this rock's final grand double album project?
The only opera I’ve really ever been exposed to were the very brief segments of “Il Trovatore” included in The Marx Brothers’ “A Night At The Opera.” Though, come to think of it, I did like opera giant Luciano Pavarotti’s duet with U2’s Bono on “Miss Sarajevo.” Not my style. Sorry.
When it came to rock operas - if such a thing isn’t too high falutin’ a term - The Who’s Pete Townshend came up with a couple of ‘em, the last of which, “Quadrophenia” may well be rock’s last great double album. At least the last one that rang my bell. If you haven’t heard it in a while, it’s worth it.
Originally a British R&B band - they did James Brown numbers! - guitarist Townshend discovered a knack for writing hit singles, songs like “I Can’t Explain” and “My Generation” and “Substitute” and “Happy Jack.”
Then Townshend, egged on by manager Kit Lambert, got a bit more ambitious and wrote a song-cycle, a “concept album” called “Tommy,” the story of a deaf, dumb and blind boy who was a pinball wizard and eventually, a cult leader. It was a tremendous success and The Who, as loud a rock band as ever strummed a guitar, actually got to play the entirety of “Tommy” in opera houses all over America. The sacrilege of the walls of an opera house shaking from the sounds of a rock guitar was delightful for many American youngsters. It was Pete’s “My Generation” and then some.
After the rousing success of The Who’s previous double album “Tommy” - which is now playing on Broadway and some years ago was the subject of a really whacked Ken Russell film with Ann Margaret, Jack Nicholson, baked beans and Eric Clapton, the album took over The Who’s stage show in the late sixties and early seventies. (They played it at Woodstock.) It got to the point where it drove the band crazy.
"Some people think the band’s called Tommy and the album’s called “The Who,” Townshend said once. So trying to follow-up “Tommy” and give the band a brand new stage show, Townshend wrote “Quadrophenia,” a song-cycle that told the compelling story of Jimmy, a lost soul from the backstreets of London.
Backed by the extraordinary thunder and lightning of The Who in full flower, the music is bold, dramatic, thrilling. Singer Roger Daltrey has never sounded more committed to the material, the wildly expressive drummer Keith Moon at his untamed best and bassist John Entwistle, the album’s unsung hero with horns, memorable basslines and a perfect counterpart to Townshend’s raging guitar, it may have been one of rock’s shining moments.
Townshend may not have the eloquent chops of a Clapton or the inventiveness of a Jeff Beck or a Jimmy Page, but his sound on this record, the ragged, rousing is perfect and the tone he wrings out of his Gibson J-200 is teenage rebellion is all its fury.
While the story line, about a unsettled malcontent teenager (are there other kinds?) trying to decide if he wants to be a sharp-dressing mod or a leather-clad toughie (rocker), taking blues, drinking, generally NOT FITTING IN ANYWHERE, may not necessarily connect with American audiences in 1973, who didn’t seem to be all that into fashion, necessarily, Townshend’s brilliant depiction of Jimmy, yet another lost - or almost lost - teenage boy really prefigures today’s American crisis for young men. It’s a topic that seems to be everywhere at once these days, magazines, talk shows, trying to grow up in an environment where - for a guy who isn’t a star athlete or rapper or scholar - you can’t find YOUR place. And you retreat inward.
Before playing the key “Quadrophenia” song “I’m One,” in concert, Townshend explained what he had in mind when he wrote it and how it led to all the songs for this concept album.
“It’s all about the way I felt because I wrote it,” said as quoted in the great Jawbone book on The Who “Won’t Get Fooled Again. “When I was a nipper I used to feel the guitar was all I had. I wasn’t tough enough to be a member of the gang, not good-looking enough to be in with the birds, not clever enough to make it at school, not good enough with the feet to be a good football player. I was a fucking loser. I think everybody feels that way at some point. And somehow being a mod - even though I was too old to be a mod really - I wrote that song with that in mind. Jimmy, the hero of the story, is kind of thinking he hasn’t got much going for himself but at least he’s one.”
A film of “Quadrophenia” came out six years later and it was a pretty good representation of the album’s story with a soundtrack that included ten of “Quadrophenia’s” greatest songs along with others from that era. The Police’s Sting has a key role in the film.
Listening to the album again, 51 years later, it fills up my living room with rousing sounds, rich, complex, thoughtful lyrics, passionate singing, spirited playing in a way that, to me, never grows old or stale. Remember Pete’s line “Hope I die before I get old”? This album doesn’t.
The greatest and most memorable songs on the album “The Punk and The Godfather,” “The Real Me”, “Bell Boy” “Doctor Jimmy” and the tenderness of “I’m One” and the absolute, album-ending classic “Love Reign O’er Me” make the listening experience one that, I think, you won’t ever forget.
Now, I don’t know if an actual opera could do that. I imagine there are some that make the listeners put down their program and golden opera glasses and put their white-gloved hands together for a polite, well-mannered ovation.
“Quadrophenia” on the other hand, might get you banging something, singing out loud, playing air guitar with those Townshend windmill slashes. I don’t know that it truly ever got its due. My advice is, in these troubled times, put it on and let love rain over you, like it does me - every time I give it a listen.