The 1971 song that Phil Collins couldn’t live without: “One of the classic rock tracks”
Phil Collins will always be a drummer first and foremost. It was the reason he devoted his life to the music industry, and if he had never sung a note in his career, Collins would have accepted it without hesitation.
However, life doesn’t typically ever go as we imagine it. For the sake of Genesis, Collins had to step up to keep the band together and sing following the departure of Peter Gabriel, which was made clear by the ill-fated auditions they held for a replacement.
As an impressionable teenager, it wasn’t Robert Plant or Roger Daltrey that he dreamed of emulating. Instead, it was John Bonham or Keith Moon, whom he viewed as magicians who could do anything as drummers.
Regarding The Who, Collins has never hidden his adoration for The Who, but Moon is the main reason for this lifelong love affair. As a sign of his affection for the band, he even offered up his availability to the band following Moon’s death despite the cast commerical success he was having at that time with Genesis. Although they chose to go down another avenue regarding his replacement, Collins idolised Moon to a degree that he could have done a sufficient job in the role.
“Absolutely would have joined The Who. I would have left Genesis to join The Who,” he told The Guardian in 2016. “But they’ve got a great drummer now in Zak Starkey, he’s fantastic. Someone with the balls that Keith Moon had.”
He did finally get to become part of The Who’s inner circle, even if it wasn’t as the heir to Moon, Collins would have taken anything. He once told Classic Rock: “I played Uncle Ernie in Tommy [in a 1989 concert with the Who], which I loved doing, though it was very politically incorrect – playing a paedophile. But it was great because I was with the Who.”
Nevertheless, despite them rejecting his advances and then making him play a paedophile on stage, Collins still holds The Who in the highest regard, even if it would have made many others hold a grudge.
Throughout the years, Collins has continued to speak positively about the group and labelled their classic track ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ as one of the all-time best in classic rock history during an interview with BBC 6 Music in 2016.
He shared, “I think that one of the classic rock tracks of all time is ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. And I remember seeing them on TV; they were televised from Charlton’s football ground (The Valley in 1976). I saw him (Moon) with this gaffer tape around his head, with his headphones, you know. It hurts to take it off if you’re foolish enough to put it around. The way he played, there was no orthodoxy at all.”
The closing track on Who’s Next is one of those songs that, while it’s spine-chillingly powerful on record, it’s a completely different beast in a live environment, especially when Moon was at the helm. No matter where they were in the world, the crowd would lose their minds for close to ten minutes as The Who proved why they were undefeated, for a time, as a live act.
Although Collins was only able to witness the famous performance at The Valley through a television screen, it was enough to leave a lasting mark on his mind and make him believe ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ is an all-time classic.
Surely, members of The Who feel the same way, right? Remarkably, Roger Daltrey has a complex relationship with ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, once telling Vulture: “With the maturity I have now and looking back on life, I’m more connected to our songs than ever. The only song I get bored with playing because it’s immovable from its arrangement is ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.”
While Daltrey may find it slightly tedious to wheel it out, it’s a song belonging to fans, like Collins, who adore it with every fibre of their being.
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