Christmas, The Who

The Who’s album Tommy was one of the first rock ‘n’ roll experiences of my young life.

Growing up in Detroit, we all listened to CKLW, sure, but that was Motown and all the pop hits of the day. I doubt there was much hardcore British Invasion. I specifically remember the song Winchester Cathedral and thinking it was cool, very cool. I would stand on my bed and play my tiny suitcase like a guitar and sing that song. At least I think that really happened.

I remember being a young girl when I first saw the album Tommy and paging through its mind-blowing, well, pages. When I was about 4 years old, an English woman, named Linda, who must have been in her 20s, came to live with our family. We sort of sponsored her, as she was a nursing student at the same school in Detroit where my mother was also studying to become an LPN. Linda had a cache of albums, 2 of which I can still picture in my mind. The album I am sure about is Tommy, but I couldn’t tell you without some research what the other one was. It must have been 1969 or 1970.

Say what you will, but no one writes rock lyrics like this any more (as if anyone ever really did; by which I mean, very few bands were able. The Beatles come to mind for pure poetry though….)

waking up on Christmas morning, hours before the winter sun’s ignited

it’s sort of beautiful, you know?

Fast Forward: 2011. Daltry is 67 years old in this video, which is amazing in and of itself. He’s accompanied by Pete Townshends’s [much younger] brother Simon who does a DAMN FINE job on this song. He looks and sounds so much like Pete.

What a bod on that Simon. Where has he been all my life? Oh, right, I’m almost as old as he.

I get a little weak in my knees (and I’m sitting down) when I watch him, which I seem compelled to do over and over and over…..

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the spirit’s binding seam

the road through the middle of several farm fields in Hadley on which there is a road sign stating Drifting Snow in black letters on a yellow background with 2 squiggly black lines: in a normal winter, yes. This winter? ironic

the sign at the car wash on Rte 9 heading west just after the I-91 S entrance: ouchless Car Wash. They’ve put back the letter T, but they didn’t really need to, did they?

I see red tails all the time on the telephone lines next to Bay Rd, the hawks surveying the ground for mice and voles, anything, nothing

This clip is not ironic, but it is brilliant, one of my favorites from one of my favorites. That Wes Anderson knows his shit.

This is brilliant, too

I like to think that I’m not as big a fan of The Who as any male could be. I certainly listened to my share of The Who in high school and college. I even saw them at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1980, after the Cincinnati trampling tragedy. My parents were understandably freaked out, but I still went. It was only half of the Silverdome, seating 40,000 instead of 80,000. When I write this, I don’t believe any of it. Not the year, not the numbers, not that I was there, not that I shirked off my parents’ concerns with a teenage disrespect I now understand from the other side.

The Who=Cock Rock

I had tickets to see Led Zeppelin when I was in high school and then Jon Bonham OD’d. Man was I pissed.

Led Zeppelin, although also Cock Rock, still works for me more than The Who.

How can I predict what music I’ll still like in a year? In thirty?

I can say with some assurance that I will never tire of Led Zeppelin’s In My Time of Dying and I think it might be their greatest recording and also one of the finest recorded examples of that particular gospel tune. Robert Plant’s pleading is the heart of the heart of gospel. I love when the drums kick back in to rejoin his a capella solo.

I did look up Blind Willie Johnson’s version, but I am more familiar with him singing “John the Revelator” from the Harry Smith recordings. Amazing.

I notice the slowing of my mental sharpness. I can’t remember lines with any facility like I could in high school. Ironically, I didn’t do any acting from then to about 10 years ago and now I can’t remember lines without a shitload of rehearsing.

Will I eventually be like my mother? How can she last to 97 years like her own mother? That’s 20 more years. I don’t see it. I don’t like it.

Originally, I was going to title this post “oh, the irony” or “small ironies” or “bitter irony” but I couldn’t come up with enough ironic things

And am I born to die? To lay this body down/ And must my trembling spirit fly, into a world unknown?

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Can I get a citation?

Considering that I have just become the Production Manager for a 7th Grade production of “Mary Poppins,” I fear I will not be writing as much as I had hoped on my fabulous new blog. At least for the next month.

I have thought of a quickie post, though, and it could be a bit fun.

Can you spot the lyrics I have lifted from 3 different songs in my New Year’s poem? If you don’t want to know yet, look away because here come the answers.

We are all forgiven: “A Quick One While He’s Away” by The Who. This notion, however, that we are all forgiven, comes straight down from the New Testament.

I got the blues:  “I Got the Blues” by the Rolling Stones.

I struggle and pant to be free:  “Panting for Heaven,” #384, The Sacred Harp.

Ciao! twinkly

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