The musician Pete Townshend called one of the best English songwriters: “Paranoia and grandiosity”
For all of the great rock and roll that existed in the 1970s, there was also a culture of baseless excess. Bands jumping on the bandwagon of musical popularity to create junk-food rock that did nothing more than briefly satisfy the senses.
But the greats of the era didn’t do that. Never did they stray into the path of creative ease and rest on the laurels of success; instead, they pushed consistently at the boundaries of what is possible. Think The Beatles and their solo careers, think David Bowie or even The Who.
Blessed with an enigmatic frontman who had a voice contemporary bands envied, the band thrived in the bubble of Motown-inspired blues-rock in the 1960s, and could have comfortably stayed there for years to come, churning out records that spoke to their dedicated fan base.
But their primary writer, Pete Townshend, was never concerned with creative comfort. He always sought to experiment and push where possible, knowing that in Roger Daltrey he had a vocalist who could match his ambition.
On their 1971 record Who’s Next, Townshend showcased their experimental flexibility best with epic tracks like ‘Baba O’Riley.’ The sprawling arpeggiated chords that opened the tracks feel deeply futuristic yet at the same time, harkened back to something classical in terms of drama and arrangement. In turn, it was truly hard to pinpoint just where Townshend was pulling his references from.
On their next album, 1973’s Quadrophenia, Townshend dove deeper into this instrumental arrangement and took inspiration from the worlds of classical music. He explained, “When I wrote the original songs it’s perhaps obvious I looked to Wagner for inspiration for some of the instrumental passages that were intended to evoke Jimmy’s uneasy mix of paranoia and grandiosity.”
He added, “Elsewhere, where the music is lighter, I refer to Bach (especially his preludes) here and there. The overall story of Quadrophenia was inspired to some extent by one of my favourite English composers, Benjamin Britten. His opera Billy Budd is also about a young man enduring a difficult rite of passage, and is set by the seaside, and on the sea itself.”
Townshend, remarking on the inspirations as obvious, feels like somewhat of a stretch for us simple music fans. But maybe its clarity as a link comes from the fact that Quadrophenia is a concept album and so naturally the worlds of classical music felt like an obvious place to learn how to knit together sonic ideas.
But the more intricate parallels are reserved for a mind like Townshend’s. Pursuing the feeling of the great classical musicians is what made him one of the most interesting songwriters of the era, one who regularly stepped outside the mode of expectation and created something unique, and innovative.
On Quadrophenia, that mighty work ethic and ambition paid off. It’s not only a complete and coherent concept album, but it boasts the sort of individual song moments that a band of The Who’s stature were striving for. That balance of creating both a micro and macro sonic picture is a skill mastered by classical musicians, but revolutionised for the modern audience by Townshend on this record.
