Who- Quadrophenia pt 2- Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey
“Your circumstances don’t matter,” cautions Quadrophenia composer Pete Townshend of The Who. ” It’s what you feel inside… Some of the most poignant and powerful letters of identification I’ve ever had on the subject of Quadrophenia have come from Californians. Eddie Vedder ( Pearl Jam ) is a good example. He was a kid who lived on a surfing beach. He saw himself as ‘Jimmy’, he identified with ‘Jimmy’, this kid who lived in a working-class area in a tiny house with no money and a tranquilizer-addicted mother, a drunken father, no prospects of a job, in a sh*thole of a place in a sh*thole of a city in a sh*thole of a world. And there he ( Eddie Vedder ) is, he’s living on a beach on the back of a surfboard.”
Pete Townshend of The Who has no such reservations, or at least none apparent in multiple lengthy conversations with me. He can discuss easily the merits of The Who’s music from 1964’s “I Can’t Explain” right up to their Super Bowl halftime performance, as well as their demerits for the band’s behavior along the way. As The Who’s recognized Quadrophenia auteur, Townshend has assessed their over half-century of musical creation and found it to be good. Pete is a delightful, witty, thoughtful, and refreshingly honest conversationalist who can easily and effectively examine The Who’s epic 1973 opus Quadrophenia through a slightly-detached, objective eye which only the passage of time and maturity can provide. -Redbeard