Janda (3:29)
The story of that night is legendary. Pete Townsend spent most of that day about 11 to 13 hours, in a grueling legal meeting with Alan Klein, the notoriously tough former manager of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, trying to sort out the band's royalties and get paid. After that encounter, he decided to go out drinking to blow off some steam. As fate would have it, he ran into Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols at a club called the Speakeasy in soho. Despite their obvious differences musically, there was a lot of common ground between Townsend and the Pistols, a kind of like minded rebelliousness and a tendency to question authority. The night wore on and Townsend in particular had imbib a little too much. And just as the song says, he really was woken up after passing out in a doorway by a policeman who recognized him but still asked for his credentials. So Townsend started yelling back to him. In his autobiography, who I Am, townsend notes that while he was shouting who are you? At the policeman, Steve Jones and Paul Cook were actually acting as mates, making sure he didn't get into too much trouble. Townsend was at an uncanny crossroads here, suffering from from industry burnout, getting into a brush with the law and feeling the strange kindness of the new punk generation. What a fascinating night, the moment the godfather of punk was saved by the punks that put the word punk on the map. While the media loved to portray them as enemies, the reality was a lot more like a passing of the torch or a very loud family reunion. I mean, after all, way back in 1965, Pete Townsend wrote the ultimate punk lyric before punk was even a word. I hope I die before I get old in my generation. But by 1978, when this meeting of the inebriated minds happened, Pete was 32. He was a millionaire, a dinosaur of the rock establishment. And he was watching a new generation of kids in ripped T shirts try to burn down the house that he helped build. By the mid-70s, the who were playing massive stadiums. But Townsend was feeling disconnected. He felt by then that the music had become too bloated, too corporate. And then came along bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash. To the press, these kids were the enemy, but to Townsend, they were a mirror. He saw his own youthful rage in them. He famously said that when he saw the Sex Pistols, he. He felt like he was seeing the WHO 10 years earlier. The interaction between him and the Pistols changed how Townsend approached the who Are youe album. You can hear it in the tension of the songs, a back to basics grit in his guitar playing that hadn't been there on the more polished the who by numbers. The lyrics of the song who Are youe address it all. The exhaustion of being a rock star and wondering not only how he fit into all this anymore and. But also, who were the kids in the front row, the ones coming to see the concerts as the next wave of rock was erupting. The song starts with that percussive chug at the beginning, pure 1970s tech pioneering with Townsend's guitar and an ARP 2600 synthesizer. The chorus comes first, almost like birds calling to one another. Who are you? Hoo hoo hoo hoo. And then the story unfolds, with Roger Daltrey delivering the lines with a swaggering powerhouse vocal. 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 I staggered back to the underground and the breeze blew back my hair I remember throwing punches around and preachin from my chair so here we have the elder rocker, drunk and preaching to the new guard. Punks as saviors as punks. Back to the chorus and then the story unfolds further. I took the tube back out of town Back to the Rollin pin I felt a little like a dying clown With a streak of Rin Tin Tin I stretched back and I hiccuped and looked back at my busy day 11 hours in the tin Pan God, There's Got to be another way this verse describes a very particular reality in Townsend's dealings with his career. The grind of it, the existential exhaustion of it. He's taking the Tube or London Underground back out of town, from meetings in the city center to the rolling pin, which in who lore could either be his wife, another bar, or a reference to pinballs rolling around inside a pinball machine from the band's Tommy days, feeling like a dying clown despite wearing a brave face like the heroic dog in the old Rin Tin Tin films. Looking back on his long day in the tin Pan, that's Denmark Street, London's version of Tin Pan Alley, the historical hub of music publishers and songwriters, and the 11 hours spent wrangling funds from his manager there on the business side of music, this verse literally ends with the plea to God to reveal another way to do all this, more about the soul of the music and less about the mechanical hustle of the business. Then it's back to the chorus, and it includes the first time the F word is included in the lyrics of this song. Dropped in at a little over two minutes in, slightly obscured by Keith Moon's ferocious drumming, but not entirely. The song then opens up into that really beautiful bridge with the Oo wa oo's and piano played by Rod Argent of the Zombies and Argent. And then it builds back up to the chorus, and then the next verse thrusts itself into your ears, even though they're the sweetest lines of the song. I know there's a place you walked where love falls from the trees My heart is like a broken cup I only feel right on my knees I spit out like a sewer hole yet still receive your kiss how can I measure up to anyone now after such a love as this? Townsend said in his memoir that this last verse was actually written way back in 1971. While the who were touring the Southeast, he visited a South Carolina retreat owned by his guru, the Meher Baba, the same guru who inspired Baba O'Reilly. It is so interesting that he included this verse in this song, which is otherwise about being drunk and burned out on the biz, because it expressed a level of total surrender from his younger days that he just couldn't replicate. In 1978, it transformed who Are youe? From a simple song about a night out into a complex meditation on whether a person can ever truly measure up to their own ideals or the love they've received, a stark contrast to the aggression in the rest of the song. Back to the chorus again, and this is the second time the F bomb is dropped. And at almost six minutes in the F bombs in this song, do what curse words should do, really emphasize the point. They aren't gratuitous or used to be shocking. They are simply how frustrated people speak, which fans recognized immediately and delighted in. When Daltrey delivers the final Tell me who are you? At the end, he does it so triumphantly. A stunning end to an anthem. A about finding yourself
