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A Who Story (rather long)



I just heard "Who Are You" on the radio, which promted me to tell this
story, which is well known by my closest friends but I don't believe I
ever shared it with other Who fans.

"Who Are You"
      or
"Who Are You And Why Don't You Leave Me Alone?!"

a true story by Yellow Ledbetter

So there I was, innocently sitting in my photography class. The darkroom
was full, so I was catching up on my algebra homework. Mr. Currie had
turned the radio on for the benefit of people processing film (a very
long and boring undertaking) in the corner. It was tuned to the local
classic rock station. As luck would have it, "Who Are You" came on. I
was rather pleased to hear any Who song, and made some sort of happy
comment to the girl sitting next to me. Not long afterwards, class
ended, and I went about my day as usual. Well, almost as usual...

Once I got home from school, I fired up the old PC and flipped on the
radio. Imagine my surprise when I heard "Who Are You" again (on another
station, no less!). I mentioned this to the people I was chatting with
online, and said how odd it was that I would hear the same non top 40
song twice in one day.

I had an orthodontist appointment later that afternoon. Mum keeps the
car radio tuned to the progressive station. But apparently they hadn't
progressed very far past the other stations in the area, as I heard "Who
Are You" once again. By this time, it was beginning to get on my nerves.
One can only hear a song so many times, after all, and "Who Are You" is
far from the Who's best number. (I don't like the vocal distortion at
all.)

Is anyone else beginning to spot a trend here? Somehow, in some
mysterious way, my presence seemed to induce the playing of "Who Are
You" on radios and public sound systems. It also had the tendency to get
stuck in my head. Everywhere I went, it was "Whoooooooooo are you, who
who, who who? Whooooooooooo are you..."
If anything like this ever happens to you, take my advice, DON'T tell
your friends. You'd be surprised how quick your friends will be to turn
against you for a cheap joke. Instead of greeting me with "Hi!" or
"Hello!" or "Oh no, not YOU again!", I got "I woke up in a Soho doorway
a policeman knew my name..." I didn't even know my friends knew all the
words to the song! I would have been impressed, had I not been trying
to restrain myself from ripping their teeth out.

The final straw came with my birthday. My dear, charming friend Tim
presented me with a small package, about the size of a tape case. I had
a really bad feeling about this, but what could I do? I tore the
wrapping paper off as slowly as possible. I'll say right now that Tim
isn't a Who fan, and doesn't own a single Who album. He really went to a
lot of trouble for me. He asked everyone he knew who seemed like a Who
fan if they had a copy of "Who Are You". Eventually he ended up going to
the music store and reading the back of every single Who album. Tim is
now the proud owner of the Daltrey Sings Townshend CD, and I am a proud
owner of a tape featuring primarily the preformance of "Who Are You"
from said album.

I'm also very proud to say that I managed not to wound Tim too badly
with the cake cutting knife.

But I still cringe every time I hear those first few bars of synthesizer
music.

                                        -Yellow Ledbetter,
                                        a policeman knows my name
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