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Re: Who Are You ROCKS!
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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