(Personal reflections inspired by Who songs)
Song: “Bellboy”
Album: Quadrophenia
Release Date: October,
1973
On
a ferry ride from France to Ireland during a life-changing backpacking tour of
Europe with great friend Bob Mainguy in the summer of 1986, I stood outside on
the decks for quite some time during the daylight hours to gaze at England’s
southern coastline, in particular the intermittent ranges of white-chalk
cliffs, as the ship wrapped around Great Britain to get to the Emerald Isle. The region had captured my imagination after
multiple viewings of the movie Quadrophenia
to that point. The most spectacular
scenery in that film is along one of those coastal white-chalk cliffs near the seaside
resort town of Brighton, where the lead character Jimmy, in a very agitated
state of mind after a series of mishaps, rides a stolen scooter, ultimately
gunning it directly toward the cliff, jumping off just as the bike careens over
the edge and down to obliteration.
The
stolen bike belonged to the movie’s “Ace Face”, the head of the Mod pack so to
speak (as written about in Big Top # 9, Mods were a British youth subculture of
some renown in the early to mid-60s).
Jimmy too is a scooter riding, pill popping, fashion-conscious Mod, but
considers himself just a face in the crowd, someone whom this Ace Face (played flawlessly
by an as-yet famous Sting in the movie) would probably not recognize despite
having shared moments at dance halls and in big fights against rival
grease-haired ‘rockers’. For most of the
movie, Jimmy has great admiration for this seemingly composed rebel leader, but
as the film lurches to its climatic conclusion his fondness abruptly crumbles.
That
moment, discussed below, is the last straw in a downward spiral for Jimmy over
the prior 24 hours, culminating in that dramatic scooter ride along the chalk
cliffs. The rest of that miserable
spiral takes place in London, and includes Jimmy 1) getting fired, 2) getting
kicked out of his home, 3) getting two-timed by his girlfriend, 4) getting shunned
by his friends, and 5) getting into a reckless accident which ends up
destroying his own scooter. After
fleeing from the big city on his personal mind-warp journey to the coast on the
“5:15” train (this mind-bending experience
is mostly due to a heavy dose of uppers), Jimmy experiences that last straw
when he spies the Ace Face at a fancy beach hotel employed in the subservient
role of bellhop. Jimmy stares in utter
disbelief as this ‘leader’ of the pack caters to the hotel’s upper-class
clientele; those same people whom the Mods were railing against. After screaming out “Bellboy!” he rounds the
bend into an alley and spots the Ace Face’s scooter, which he proceeds to hijack.
The
Quadrophenia song “Bellboy” is all
about this encounter. “Bellboy” is so profound
in so many ways, that I thought it appropriate to break it down, musical
sequence by musical sequence and lyric by lyric. What follows is that breakdown. You can follow along with this url link: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5nMhhbwdOU).
First
off an overview: “Bellboy” is a
two-character song; Roger Daltrey singing in the role of Jimmy and Keith Moon
in the role of the Ace Face/bellboy.
This is the only well-known Who song where Keith Moon sings, and he does
it brilliantly. Generally speaking, Moon
was a horrible music vocalist in most every circumstance (all one need do to
confirm this is struggle through a cut or two from his singular solo effort, Two Sides of the Moon), and the rest of
the Who did all they could to keep him away from the microphone in the studio
since he was under the lifelong delusion that he was good at singing (** Side Note: This internal battle is
hilariously caught on record at the end of “Happy Jack” with Pete Townshend
blurting out “I saw ya!” as Moon tries
to slip into the recording-console room at the moment the rest of the band were
performing the backing vocals).
But
Keith Moon was absolutely perfect for the role of the bellboy. Considering how rarely Moon sang, how the
heck did the Who figure out that he was the ideal vocalist for this song? Listening to “Bellboy” I find this factoid
alone a fascinating one. Moon nails his
vocals by exaggerating the absurdity of the character in his singing; in
similar fashion to how Ray Davies could pull this same sentiment off for the Kinks
in songs like “Mr. Pleasant” and “David Watts”, which was something that the
other members of the Who frankly did not have in them. I would go as far as to say that Keith Moon’s
lead vocals in this one song ranks up with some of the best lead vocals in the
entire Who catalog.
Speaking
of Keith Moon, “Bellboy” starts off with tremendously assertive drumming. If a novice Who listener wants to get a good sense
of Moon’s value to the band, the entirety of Quadrophenia is the best place to start: This is his magnum opus. It’s the record that first gave me true
insight into the intrinsic value of this musical instrument when played at a supremely
adept level. Yes, it would take a Herculean
effort, but this message did finally get through to me, and once it did, it
opened a new world of perception to the drums and eventually to that other rhythm
instrument, the bass (though the Who’s ‘rhythm’ section rarely adhered to this rather
limited adjective).
Ok,
let’s move on to the lyrics, which I will color code: Red for Jimmy
and Green for the Ace
Face/bellboy. I first have to note that
I must not forget Roger Daltrey’s singing in the Jimmy role. He is top drawer here too (making for a
magnificent one-two punch with Moon).
The following opening lines by Jimmy (Daltrey) introduce us to the
seaside setting, the ocean being a central theme to Quadrophenia in so many ways (including ultimately drawing out a
ray of hope in Jimmy at the end of the story):
“A beach is a place where a man can feel
He’s the only soul in the world
that’s real”
It’s
a relief to know I’m not the only person who can feel this way at times (Pete
Townshend has done this for me over and over again with his music). From here the song “Bellboy” gets down to
business. It has not quite dawned on
Jimmy (Daltrey) as to just what he is observing. He realizes he is looking at the Ace Face but
his mind has not yet accepted the absurd juxtaposition of the hotel uniform he
is wearing, and so he daydreams a bit:
“But I see a face coming through the haze
I remember him from those crazy days.
Crazy days. Crazy Days”
Images
flash through Jimmy’s mind of the glory days:
“Ain’t
you the guy who used to set the paces
Riding
up in front of a hundred faces?
I
don’t suppose you would remember me
But
I used to follow you back in ‘63”
It
is here at the end of this verse that the reality of Ace Face as bellboy kicks
in with Jimmy and the music reflects this; the pace is faster, the tone more
ominous. Pete Townshend’s guitar playing
sounds furious. After this short, intense musical transition, the bellboy
(Moon) introduces himself in a self-mocking exaggerated cockney accent:
“I’ve got a job and I’m newly born
You should see me, dressed up in my
uniform”
The Ace Face
now bellboy continues by reflecting on the past himself. In the movie, an earlier scene has a rumble
taking place in Bristol between the Mods and the Rockers, with the entire
resort town falling victim (a true story, with Pete Townshend retrieving some
old news footage of the event as one of the many add-in effects between songs
on Quadrophenia). Included in the destruction is the hotel the
bellboy now works at:
“I work in a hotel all gilt and
flash
Remember the gaff where the doors we
smashed!”
Jimmy
gets back in the mix now, pointing his finger at the bellboy and screaming in
incriminating fashion (much like the band did at Billy Idol when he played the
role of bellboy in this tremendous footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5nMhhbwdOU). From there it’s a back and forth between the
two:
“Bellboy!”
“I got to get running now”
“Bellboy!”
“Keep my lip buttoned down”
“Bellboy!”
“Carry this baggage out”
“Bellboy!”
“Always running at someone’s heels
You know how I feel
Always runnin’ at someone’s heels”
A few soft
John Entwistle bass notes transition the tone again, this time to melancholy,
as the bellboy’s conscience seems to kick in.
This is where the depth of Pete Townshend’s intentions to the meaning of
this song really becomes apparent. Up
until now “Bellboy” is about the notion of someone who disappoints us in life; perhaps a person who we held to high standards and later
let us down. That’s unique
enough. But here the songs focus shifts
to the even deeper meaning of also disappointing ourselves,
and soon enough realizing you are disappointing others. I always knew there was something significantly
more complex about this song, and yet I could not quite put my finger on
it. It was not until this week, when I
gave “Bellboy” another series of good listens that I rounded out my
understanding of the multiple levels of meaning that Pete Townshend intended
when he wrote it:
“Some nights I still sleep on the beach
Remembering when stars were in reach
Then I wander in early to work
Spend my day lickin’ boots for my perks”
At
this point the opening stanza loops back (“A beach is a place
where a man can feel….”). There’s not much to say about this part of
the song other than recognizing Roger Daltrey’s extraordinary professional
sixth sense that this is the second go-around, and so must build on the
intensity of the first (part of this added intensity may be in that now the bellboy is adding his voice to the chorus). On the recent 50th
anniversary tour, Daltrey called himself an alchemist in terms of his ability
to interpret Pete Townshend’s music.
This part of the song is an excellent affirmation of that quote.
Another
intense musical interlude is followed by Keith Moon bringing it all back home
with yet another twist to the meaning of Pete Townshend’s song, the bellboy
trying in vain to make sense of his plight:
“People often change but when I look in your eyes
You could learn a lot, from a life like mine
The secret to me, it ain’t flown like a flag
I carry it behind this pretty little badge, what says?
“Bellboy!”
“I got to get running now”
“Bellboy!”
“Keep my lip buttoned down”
“Bellboy!”
“Carry this baggage out”
“Bellboy!”
“Always running at someone’s heels
“You know how I feel
Always runnin’ at someone’s heels”
Bravo to the
Who for giving me the opportunity to interpret in my own words another timeless
masterpiece.
- Pete
No comments:
Post a Comment