Re: Who Are You ROCKS!

["gern blanston" <gernblanston67@hotmail.com>]

While I think The album Who Are You is decent enough (not without weak 
links like New Song, Sister Disco, 905), I think the song "Who are You" 
is one of the best freakin' rock songs, not only one of The Who's best 
songs. What an ass-kickin' message!

It's such a complex song with great starts/stops, interludes. And it's 
so freakin' in your face! Awesome that The Who came out with this at 
that point in their career.

I don't know if it's common knowledge (it probably is), but my hackned 
memory of the impetus for that song had to do with Pete meeting up with 
a few of the members of the Sex Pistols after he had a particularly 
draining meeting regarding royalties/song rights. Management cut Pete a 
check after the meeting and he felt like 'so this is what it all comes 
down to.' And this was all happening during the height of the punck 
movement, when the new guard was thumbing its nose at "old" rock bands 
like The Who, claiming they didn't matter anymore, that they only did it 
for the money. Pete went to a bar after the meeting, got really drunk 
and started yelling at the Sex Pistols ("I remember throwing punches 
around and preachin' from my chair"), and made the obvious mistake of 
calling one of them "Johnny" as in Johnny Rotten, which made him even 
angrier that he made such a tourist's mistake. 

He stormed out of the bar and passed out in a doorway. A cop woke him 
up, and he took a train home ("I woke up in a Soho doorway a policeman 
knew my name. He said, "You can go sleep at home tonight if you can get 
up and walk away."), and wrote the song.

At least, I think that's the way the story goes.

God I love that song.

BTW, the Sex Pisotls who he yelled at turned out to be big Who fans and 
were worried that they were breaking up when Pete was yelling at them.

Mook

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