The 1989 Who cover song Pete Townshend despised: “Frightening”
Could you claim that The Who were heavy metal? It was difficult to say, but one thing they certainly weren’t was LA rockers.
Over time, it is perhaps this dichotomy of image which has grated on Pete Townshend more than any other irritations in the music industry. For a band who were so proudly and distinctly British in both their sound and vision, to be chalked up to some Stateside paraphernalia was probably rather insulting to their artistic disposition.
But then again, when you were at the first frontier of developments like the rock opera, there was always bound to be an element of the theatricality and showmanship that caught the attention of the inherently flashy Americans, which they ran and took for their own. There was nothing Townshend could do about it, of course, but it didn’t mean it failed to piss him off.
That particularly became the case when bands and artists in question started covering The Who’s songs, which can be a contentious issue at the best of times, let alone when they were transforming them into their own thrash and glitter of heavy metal. The worst offenders, in that regard, were WASP.
The Los Angeles heavy metal scene of the mid-1980s might have seemed a far cry from the 1960s grimness of the London streets that The Who made their name in, and in this respect, Townshend wouldn’t be all that misplaced in his disdain. But their decision to cover ‘The Real Me’ from Quadrophenia was a stretch too far.
“You give them a good song, and they’re fuckin’ out there; it’s frightening,” Townshend sneered, before you could imagine his lip curling like a comedy villain in the next sentence. “But it’s interesting that they picked that song; they picked a song which is a boast, a threat.” Certainly, with an angry mod rocker battling to find his identity, there was a lot to unpack.
In this regard, Townshend probably thought that a mere cover version was no match for the meaning of the song. “It’s just that the form is limiting,” he mused, “and I suppose part of that I actually respect, because I think that limitations are very, very valuable.” Valuable in the respect that it proves the point that his own songwriting couldn’t be beaten?
It certainly seemed that the guns were being cocked in anticipation of some kind of rock and roll war – but even by those standards, it was probably quite clear all along that there was only ever going to be one winner. Townshend, that is, if it wasn’t already clear enough. The king of the scene was dominating his rule, and these new kids on the block were just small fry.
No, it may not have been the most welcoming or gracious response to a band covering a song, an honour which most other artists would receive with a certain shred of humility. Instead, for Townshend, it was a rather horrifying state of affairs. In the end, The Who could never be replicated, and that was probably for the best.
