Re: The Who Mailing List Digest V5 #173

["Michael J. Pecoraro" <pecoraro_michael@jpmorgan.com>]

Somebody wrote:

>Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 18:11:19, -0500
>From: THRH79B@prodigy.com ( K D GILES)
>Subject: Re: Songs of Sexism?


>While I would not normally be one to argue against Pete being an
>excellent writer, I feel that the lyric "What is it, I'll take it/Who
>is she, I'll rape it" is a far cry from his usual fine work.  Even if
>one ignores the fact that many people find this lyric offensive, and
>worse still, that others take it literally but do NOT find it
>offensive (the man sitting behind me at the 11/1/96 Quad show was
>gleefully shouting "Rape!  Rape!" throughout "Dr. Jimmy"), it is just
>a clumsy line.  The grammatical error may be due to poetic license
>(Jimmy thinking of the woman in question as nothing more than an
>object, an "it" rather than a "her"), but it is hard for me to
>overlook the deviation from the song's rhyme scheme.  Since there are
>any number of words that rhyme with "take", and several that rhyme
>with "rape", I can only assume that Pete was being lazy when he wrote
>this line.  It is certainly not his best work.


I could not disagree more.  All of quadrophenia attempts to evoke states of
mind and emotions.  No song on the album does it more powerfully than
Doctor Jimmy.  Saying the lyrics contain a "gramatical error" because it
does not rhyme is just pathetic, and should not escape beyond a 3rd grade
classroom.  The song is absolutely perfect the way it is.  Actually, the
way Roger sings it, the lines almost do rhyme (" what is it? I'll TAY-AKE
it,     Who is she?  I'll RAY- APE it?.).   The line is NOT clumsy - not
even close.  In fact, it is the most powerful line, on the most powerful
song, on the most powerful album the who has ever made.   It shows how
extreme his state of mind is - and I applaud Pete for not holding back.  It
is the defining line of the song.  As far as the song being sexist, this is
not true either.  In his state of mind, Jimmy is going to beat, steal,
rape, whatever comes across his path.  He is so frustrated he has stopped
considering anyone elses point of view.  If he was a homosexual, he would
be saying "who is he? I'll rape him.".  However, the character is not a
homosexual, and thus says "who is she?".  The song does not say anything
derogatory about the female population.  He is just in a state of mind
where he does not consider any repercussions to his actions.  This of
course, is not an  uncommon result of being drunk.  As an aside, the song
makes the interesting observation that drunk people (although alcohol is
legal) are much more prone to violence than on some other drugs ("when I'm
pilled you don't notice him - he only comes out when I drink my gin").

I saw Roger this weekend in Westbury, Long Island.  He looked and sounded
great.  We were all surprised how genuinely happy he seemed to be singing
at such a small venue.  He really appreciated the fans.

"You can cover up your guts, but when you cover up, you're nuts.  You're
admitting that their must be something wrong."