Re: The Who Digest Vol 3 Num 74

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

Mark,

You are, of course, right.  Townshend does identify with Jimmy even as he
distances himself from him.  I should have cleared that up.  Thanks for
doing that for me.  The ironic distance for which I credit Townshend there
is borne simply of age, yet that doesn't mean he does not still identify
with his young protagonist.  Quite the contrary: Jimmy is clearly woven
from his own life.  I'm an English teacher, and when I try to explain
ironic distance to my students I ask them the following question: "If,
through some as-yet undeveloped technology, you were able to travel back
in time and encounter some younger version of yourself--say, yourself at
seven years old--how would you feel about that person?  If you asked that
kid--who is you, remember--what s/he wants to be when s/he grows up, what
will the kid say? (That is, what would you have said at seven?)"  To the
second question the students will respond, "Fireman, astronaut, actress,"
whatever, flushed in embarrassment all the while.  Their embarrassment is
the product of "ironic distance." 

I particularly liked what you said about "Quad" defining Rock.  I would
add that it is the last really great "Rock" album.  After "Quad," Rock
just becomes an FM radio format, complete with a whole roster of bands who
have done little more than mastered the sound without doing anything with
the form (Journey, Styx, Foreigner, etc.).  The same thing is happening
with so-called Alternative Rock right now.  These little sub-genre
movements have a shelf life of about 8 to 10 years, it seems to me.  After
that, they get coopted by opportunists who only want a niche in the
market. Record executives like the latter part of these movemements, of
course, for once the movement has become simply a "sound," they can better
control the distribution of product.  Rock runs from about the 1965-era
Who to the 1976 release of the first Boston album.  Alt Rock runs from
R.E.M.'s "Murmur" in 1983 all the way to the first Stone Temple Pilots
album.  What next?  Unfortunately, I'm a little too old to care. 

Marshall