Re: The Who Digest Vol 3 Num 74

[James Marshall Boswell <jboswel@emory.edu>]

On Sat, 16 Mar 1996, Mark Leaman wrote:

> I've always had the feeling that no Townshend
> lyric would alienate women more that this one from QUAD: "How come the girls
> come on oh so cool/And when you met `em, every one's a fool..." No while I
> can hardly agree with this, I would be willing to bet that at some time or
> another most guys have felt this to be somewhat true (especially toward a
> specific female), perhaps after trying in vain to show womanhood what a
> great catch they are. This is certainly a common male adolescent experience.
> Of course, it could just as easily be a common female experience as well,
> with a very slight change of lyric.
> Anyway, I invite you and our other female contingent to address this issue,
> if you desire.
> 

Well, I'm not a member of the female contingent around here, but hell,
I'll respond anyway.  I think the thing to remember about most of the
lyrics on "Quad" is that they issue from a voice that is NOT Townshend's:
he is writing in the voice of Jimmy, an adolescent Mod who is not nearly
as tough or as cocky as he tries to be--a perfect rendering of adolescent
confusion, in other words.  As I said in another posting on this same
subject, all the bravado on "Quad" is undercut by Jimmy's anguished cry,
"Is it me for a moment?" The word for this technique is, of course, irony:
the statement cannot be taken at face value and must be put in context. 
What's more, its "attachment" to the author is always ambiguous:  there is
a disconnect there, wholly intended by the author.  Nabokov does not
advocate the seduction of little girls in "Lolita," Dostoevsky does not
advocate the murder of miserly landladies in "Crime and Punishment," and
so on.  I've always liked the disclaimer at the bottom of the narrative
included in the inside sleeve of the old "Quad" LP: "No one in this story
is meant to represent anyone either living or dead, particularly not the
Mum and Dad.  Our Mums and Dads are all very nice and live in bungalows
which we bought them in the Outer Hebrides."  Note that even THIS passage
is ironic! 

Here's the fascinating thing for me about "Quad": As a fourteen-year-old
male adolescent in the first throes of Who-obsession, I was only vaguely
clued into Twonshend's irony.  Actually, I probably didn't pick up on any
of it.  At the time I was also taken by the Clash and the Sex Pistols and
those great and woefully under-appreciated heirs to The Who's throne, The
Jam.  All of this music simply voiced my own confusion without explaing
it.  (Got a feeling inside I can't explain.) What thrills me now about
"Quad" is the ironic underpinnings: the record works so beautifully
precisely because it plays into the whole punk-rock myth of male
aggression and adolescent angst--a myth The Who pretty much invented
wholesale in 1965 and which is now, in these days of Alternative Rock,
pretty much the mainstream-while at the same time questioning those very
values.  The album, then, is double-voiced:  Jimmy's voice is framed by
Townshend's older, wiser voice.  How many Rock albums can claim that kind
of richness and depth?  Precious few, in my assessment.  Why?  Because
most Rock music is written and performed by aggressive angst-ridden
adolescent males who do not have access to the kind of wisdom born from
hindsight, a wisdom that would allow tham to assess their feelings within
a larger context.  (Did someone say Green Day?) This is Rock's charm and
its shortcoming, it seems to me.  "Quad" possesses that charm without
suffering the shortcoming. 

Make sense?

Marshall