women and the who

[Trish Pottersmith <trish.pottersmith@Colorado.EDU>]

Regarding the gender stuff:

I remember thinking "you say she's a virgin..." verse to be hilarious.  I
loved it.  I think by picking out individual lyrics, you miss the
big picture.  Whether the character in the song is speaking from a
guy's point of view or not doesn't ultimately matter...the feelings
transcend it.  And there are many women who can identify with the
emotions of Quad.  Quad was my favorite album for a few years in my
mid-twenties.  I think we all tend to assume that
certain feelings we have are unique to <fill in category:  men, women,
overweight people,gay people, generation xers, blacks, whites> but in fact 
they are very common feelings provoked by a variety of circumstances in 
all of our lives. One of my alltime favorite Townshend lines to sing 
along with is "I just can't face my failure, I'm nothing but a 
well-fucked sailor".  Probably not a likely line to come from a woman, 
but it's all about analogy.  Pete's analogies ring true for me.  
I may not have been a sailor (I decline to comment on the first part!) 
but I could relate to the feeling anyway.  When you nail a description of 
something that well, I don't think it matters who's point of view its from.
It's just plain art.

Trish 

NP:  "There Are Seven Days, There Are Seven Days In a Week"

     (just a little humor for anyone who's kid is as obsessed with
      Barney as I used to be with Pete T.)