Ahhhhhhh, Quadrophenia. One of the first Who tapes I bought
included the song 5:15, but I had no idea what album it was on. That tape also
had the song “love Reign o’er me”, a song I absolutely hated. And still do, for
that matter. One thing that has constantly hit me about a lot of my musical
taste is that I cannot escape from is my initial reaction to songs stays with
me because of my mental state when I heard the song first.
With
Quadrophenia, the songs that typify John Entwistle (Dr. Jimmy) and Keith Moon
(Bell Boy) always spoke to me for
some reason. Most likely because I was a completely angry, 13 year old. I had no
ideas of mods and rockers, scooters and seersucker. All I knew was that these
songs (as well as The Real Me)hit me in the sweet spot of anger. But there was one song that made a
difference, and it is still my favorite song on the album.
I’m getting put down
I’m being pushed ‘round
I’m being beaten every
day
My life is waiting
Things are changing
These are powerful words for a 12 year old, especially one
in an abusive household. Incredibly powerful words. I could never get it out of
my head in junior high that there was much more to life than what I was seeing
and putting up with. I thought about running away several times, but where
would I go? The only other place I knew well (well 2 other places) were
Montrose, Iowa and Mountainburg, Arkansas.
Hell, at that point I knew I had a
brother named Garry who worked at the T&M Mighty Mart, but I did not know
where he lived. I had no damn idea how to get to either of those other places,
besides going south via Hwy 218. By the
time I was about 13, dad had become relatively manageable. Meaning I knew how
to avoid him and everyone else I did not want to meet. Usually, that meant
going to the 7-11 and indulging in Super Big Gulps and Super Mario Brothers or
Excitebike. Damn Nintendo.
On a side note, I was so excited when I moved to the west
coast and found 7-11s still extant! I love 7-11. LOVE IT! I instantly bought a
Horchata Big Gulp in Watsonville, CA and felt sick for two days. I don’t care.
It was awesome and I would do it again. At some point age and experience will
win with me, but not yet.
But that song. It’s about a bunch of folks who have odd
jobs: bus driver, pig farmer, etc. It is also about age and experience, class
and children. In the context of the
album, it serves a sort of bridge function, shuffling identities across the
span of time taken in the songs. It is not musically a standout of the album,
certainly not up to par with “Punk Meets the Godfather”, “The Real Me”, “Sea
and Sand” and others. It is not lyrical, nor it is brutal. It is matter of
fact:
I am a man who drives
the local bus
I take miners to work
but the pits are closed today
It’s easy to see that
you are one of us
Ain’t it funny how we
all seem to look the same?
Quodrophenia is an album about clothes, styles and identity,
and for my money this is the most brilliant lyric on the album. This man,
driving a bus, engages in the same type of judgment as the mods:
My jacket’s gonna be
cut slim and checked
Maybe a touch of
seersucker with an open neck
The Bellboy:
I’m on the job and I’m
newly born
You should see me
dressed up in my uniform
I work in a ‘otel, all
gilt and flash
Remember that place
whose doors we smashed????
But what the bus driver is talking about is far deeper. It
is that look in the eyes of the defeated, the downtrodden. Those who have
little hope for the future and little love for their past, meaning that the
present is just more shit that is hopeless and unloved, an outlook that poisons
lives. The miners look the same in
uniform, when they come out of the pit and when they go to get pissed on a
weekend; the mods and rockers, wearing more authentic uniforms than the miners
can afford or the man on the job, dress differently in their similarity. They
work with a palate of designs not their own.
The payoff is this, though:
Just like a child, I’m
seeing only dreams
I’m all mixed up, but
I know what’s right.
For a 12-13 year old, this was eye opening. It still is;
even if we cannot choose what is right, we know what it is. After we choose, there is the remnant. In my
experience, it is guilt over choosing the incorrect or easy path. For others,
it is choosing the correct or right one only to be treated poorly. Some win,
some keep on as before. For those of us with guilt (and I do not mean Catholic
guilt; I mean noxious self-imposed guilt) it colors our lives. We know what is right; in our dreams we are
always right. But we see only dreams because every move we make is wrong.
Sometimes this extends past ourselves into disappointing the ones that we love
(which is very painful) but most times it is just ourselves that we see as
failing to live up to those dreams. And so we continue to the next day to dream
and fail again; occasionally we get past our own expectation of failure, but
because they are simple and our own, they are not noticed.
I’m not gonna sit and
weep again.
Again, Townsend captures the anger. Not outward, but inward. The worst kind.
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