Re: The Who Digest Vol 3 Num 74

[mleaman@sccoast.net (Mark Leaman)]

>Make sense?

Marshall:

Indeed, and it's well said.
I have always said that TOMMY transcended Rock Music, whereas QUAD defined
it. Rock, as I see it anyway, is pretty much a male playground with male
ideas and ideals. Few women have been truly successful at it.
Certainly Pete was defining Jimmy with the line: "How come the girls..." and
also defining how a lot of us (and himself as well, I'm sure) felt a time or
two in our adolescence. So while I can accept your statement that Pete was
"playing" Jimmy here, I can't completely excuse him from the self-truth that
lies within the line (of course, this very truth being one of the many great
things about QUAD). I would say that in QUAD, Townshend laid out how he
himself felt in his adolescence very honestly and in a graphic way. Which is
why it strikes such a chord with so many males...however it may affect
females (I've heard a lot of Who men say that QUAD is their favorite album,
whereas I cannot recall a woman saying that...help me out here, girls. Is it
QUAD that's your fav, or some other album...and why? There will be a quiz
next week...).
Townshend, as I'm sure I'll get no argument about here, was an outstanding
songwriter. Much of his work was multi-layered (at least from SELL OUT on).
Irony is very much a part of adolescence...if nothing else, the fact that
trying so hard to "be" what we want to be pushes us farther away from
it...what could be more ironic than that? Yet this striving and not
understanding why it doesn't work is what makes adolescence so hard for
males (at least).
Anyway, I'm too damned tired to try to take this any further
tonight...although I'm beginning to believe that there is certainly enough
subject matter in QUAD alone for a book...

                  Cheers                          ML