(Personal reflections inspired by Who songs)
Song: “Won't Get Fooled Again”
Album: Who’s Next
Release Date: August,
1971
We spend significant chunks of our lives alone with our
own thoughts and actions. This applies
to virtually everyone including the most socially networked extroverts among us
as well as those with the closest of marriages.
Take Dad for example; up and out before the crack of dawn, his daily revitalization,
which includes morning Mass and a greeting of the rising sun from any number of
vantage points, most notably the Nobska Lighthouse in Falmouth on Cape Cod, is
already half full with reflection and design before many of us have even cracked
open our eyelids. I know this is an
invaluable start to Dad’s day, if for no other reason than seeing how he
conducts himself when with all of us. Dad
is a testament to the notion that what we do with our time of solitude can fuel
all those periods when we connect with others.
When you’re alone time is productive, so is you’re interaction time, the
one a mirror image of the other.
Pete Townshend’s approach to songwriting falls under the
same logic. Listen to his home-studio
demo tapes of Who songs (released in a flurry of Scoop albums over the years, which I will review and do highly
recommend) and you get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of a brilliant mind at work,
with vocals and multi-overdubbed layers of music; Townshend demoing just about
every musical instrument that ends up on the final Who studio versions. This inner-sanctum of creativity first became
general public knowledge to Rock critics and fans upon the release of Who’s Next in 1971. The big reason: Synthesizer music, meticulously composed by
Pete Townshend, which was used extensively on the album for the unmistakable
backing-track melodies we hear in rock classics such as “Baba O’Riley”,
“Bargain”, and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (** Side Note: On the surface, it can
seem a bit absurd that these oh-so familiar of grooves in Rock history are from
pre-recorded synthesizer, which supposedly goes against the grain of what this
‘spontaneous’ music genre is about. But
they were very well crafted, and done with only the best of intentions, so this
train of thought has never really gained any traction). Synthesizer
was so distinct to the Who’s new live sound in the early 70s, that when it was
being pumped in on backing tapes by sound-engineer Bobby Pridden, fans started
asking how this music came to be. The
answers gave them deeper insight into the germinating steps that ultimately
lead to the making of a Who record.
It was not long into my own fascination with the Who’s
music at the age of 18 that I discovered this factoid too. And with that insight I began thinking more
about how ones time spent in solitude effects his/her ability to inspire
others. Yes I had this concept tossed at
me in one way or another from a handful of knowing adults before this time,
including my parents, my Aunt Ginger (whom I promise to talk more about at some
point), and a few great teachers. I
would learn to appreciate this wisdom much more as the years rolled on, but at
that particular time, the music (and the occasional comment or action of close friends)
percolated to the top of my sources of inspiration. In this way music contributed brilliantly to
my own personal rite of passage toward knowing the importance of alone-time and
reflective thought. Some people take
Yoga or other forms of meditation to do this.
I never needed it. Music was and
continues to be my Yoga.
Pete Townshend once stated “the day you open your mind to music you are
halfway to opening your mind to life”.
I love this quote. It emphasizes
the potential of music without overemphasizing it. Music is not the answer, but it is a means to
the end (halfway is pretty significant though, is it not?) Another thing this statement stirs in me is a
reassurance that the concept of this blog series has a solid foundation. I had not read this quote until recently, but
when I started this blog back in 2008 I may have already channeled it. Music got me halfway, yes, and I guess I have felt
obliged to take it further.
How do you open your mind to music though? Not everyone crosses that line, and there are
surely other paths that point us to deliverance. But still, this is a curiosity. Does it take a certain mindset? Are some of us born with this capability while
others are not? I can really only speak
for myself, and even that’s difficult. In
fact, it’s taken 223 blog entries so far to try and explain. Ok, that part is a dissertation. But at the very least, is there a moment I
can look back on and pinpoint when my mind opened up to music? Maybe, and it just may be that nite at the Mohawk
Theatre in North Adams in the winter of 1980 (see Big Top # 2 “The Awakening”). There were earlier moments that I can
certainly credit as waves: A children’s
record player that I used over and over to listen to “Michael Row Your Boat
Ashore” and “Edelweiss”, along with other traditional songs. There
was Mom and Dad introducing the family to the Beatles with a purchase of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
and The Red Album (“Michelle” and “Paperback
Writer” being personal favorites). There
was a moment I documented already listening to Mick Taylor’s lead guitar in the
instrumental portion of the Rolling Stones “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking”, along
with many other notable waves. But I believe the wave of all waves, the tidal
wave, was that viewing of The Kids Are
Alright for the first time.
Music is a state of mind.
It can quiet a room of chatter.
It can pull you out of the doldrums, transporting us into an entirely
different mental place. It has its roots
in every civilization in the history of mankind. However, music can be very difficult to define,
which only adds to its aura. WIKI for example starts with the sentence that
music is “an art form and cultural
activity whose medium is sound and silence”. Hmmm; ok.
One thing Pete Townshend tried to convey through synthesizer was that music
is very personal, and that we all have our own musical portrait that can be
captured through computerized biographical data. Much of the synthesizer sound on Who’s Next was developed through this
very personal experimentation, with input from all four members of the Who and many
of their audience. At the very least,
what I get out of this is that Townshend takes his profession very seriously.
The following video recording is of the Who performing “Won’t
Get Fooled Again” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgubG-MOPT4 ) which was done for The Kid’s Are
Alright movie. It was Keith Moon’s
last live performance, and since this song was the final encore, it is the last
of the last. We get to see the Who in
all their glory here. John Entwistle’s stoic
bass playing, Pete Townshend’s masterful stage presence, a laser-light synthesizer
bridge to die for, Keith Moon’s drum
solo immediately following, and Roger Daltrey’s famous blood-curdling howl following
Moon. You get the windmills and microphone
twirls and treble-rich sound and Thunderfingers and acrobatics (including
Townshend’s knee slide across the stage during Daltrey’s howl) and signature
Who lead tradeoffs between bass, guitar and drums and equipment smashing and camaraderie.
This is powerful stuff. It’s a perfect
example of why I call this series “Under the Big Top”.
“Won’t Get Fooled Again” was originally meant for a
movie, Lifehouse, which never came to
light (see Big Top # 7: “A Change of Plans”).
The song is a cynical take on politics and power: “Meet
the new boss, same as the old boss”.
Pete Townshend has embraced the sentiment at times and tried to distance
himself from it at others. Personally, I
don’t read into the lyrics all that much.
The music stands on its own, pretty much explaining the sentiment in
ways the words can’t hope to match.
- Pete
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