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The Who and Our Generations - Eric the Green - 11-14-2022
"My Generation" by The Who is acknowledged to be one of the theme songs of Generations theory. "Turn Turn Turn" by The Byrds was cited by the authors as a theme song for their turnings theory.
I just discovered how often Peter Townshend, The Who's brilliant composer, based his great songs in part on earlier works. And how prompted by an accusation leveled against the Millennial British Boy Band One Direction and its writers and producers that they copied a song by The Who for their intro to "Best Song Ever", which indeed was THEIR best song ever and it "copied" a song on an album that included the real "best song ever," The Who in a new song said it was fine by them and they did it too.
These fascinating connections led me to write an essay for our UU church writing group called "Fly Away: The Who and Our Generations" in which I explored this theme. And then I discovered after writing it, that The Who had just put out a new song in which Pete Townshend confirmed everything I said in the article!
http://philosopherswheel.com/flyaway.html
He wrote: "Oh, this sound that we share has already been played. And it hangs in the air" and then "I don't mind, other guys ripping off my song, I'd be a liar, if I said I never done no wrong." and "what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine and what's yours is yours and what's mine is mine; who gives a fuck" (thereby condemning this new song from getting broadcast airplay).
I discovered, even before hearing this new song (called "All This Music Must Fade"), that The Who's (and rock's) greatest song ever, "Won't Get Fooled Again" sounded like it was based on Beethoven's Leonore Overture #3, from his opera Fidelio-- which was about a political prisoner during the struggles for freedom after the French Revolution had started the movement for freedom but had been betrayed and gone awry, as depicted in "Won't Get Fooled Again." And the song itself was probably inspired by the pioneering documentary about all this by his countryman Kenneth Clark in an episode of "Civilization" called "The Fallacies of Hope" in which Beethoven's overture and opera were featured. The Who and Pete also had just out another great new song from the same new album called "Ball and Chain" about political prisoners at Guantanamo. The links to all these songs and film are at the website above, including in its MORE LINKS section.
Just recently though I discovered that not only did Pete take words from Buddy Holly's song "Not Fade Away" for "My Generation" ("Why don't you all fade away; don't try and dig what we all say"), but the actual melody and rhythmic patterns of "My Generation" are based on "Not Fade Away" too. Listen in:
and "My Generation":
Even Roger's "stutter" is based on Buddy Holly's famous "ah a hah" "hiccup" sounds. Holly's "Not Fade Away" was only a B-side, but The Rolling Stones version made it more popular. They replaced Holly's ump bop, bop, bop bop (corresponding to The Who's later replacement "talkin' bout my genera-tion") with cool harmonica and guitar riffs.
I guess it all shows that things just come around again and again!
And a note to Steve Barerra, that in my essay "Fly Away" I mention The Clash, whose late member you paid tribute to in our Obituary column.