“Skillful bit of songwriting”: The song that saw The Who channel Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys
When we think of The Who, we often think of the greatest band ever to write concept albums. The concept album was quite a difficult thing to tackle in the 1960s, as it basically applied to every record where the songs could be somewhat linked. It wasn’t until The Beatles released Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that the true nature of a concept album was realised, and The Who took this idea and ran with it.
The band ended up making albums such as Tommy and Quadrophenia. These weren’t just records where the songs were linked; they told a compelling story. The kind that has since inspired stage shows and movies, making the band famous for its unique storytelling ability.
That said, while their concept albums make up some of The Who’s most exciting work, they shouldn’t overshadow the other outstanding records they put out before they had this new sense of identity. Some of their greatest singles came long before the idea to make compelling stories using music surfaced, and these songs are still celebrated as some of the band’s very best.
Songs like ‘My Generation’ will still fill a dancefloor the moment those opening chords are strummed. There is something rebellious, fun and enchanting about the track that still manages to capture the hearts of listeners worldwide today. However, while the song remains one of The Who’s very best, it is worth noting that it was written during a period of uncertainty for the band.
Pete Townshend was trying to find an identity for them, and that meant putting good songwriting at the forefront of his mind, as he so often did, but also trying to channel some of the more popular artists in the world back then to entice the best musicians to play with him. As such, by his own admission, the track ‘My Generation’ has hints of different bands in there, becoming a haphazard mess that somehow works in the most beautiful way.
“It wasn’t really personal, you know?” said Townshend when discussing the inspiration behind the song. “’My Generation’ was a very, very skilful bit of songwriting. It’s got a bit of Bob Dylan in there. It’s got a bit of Mose Allison in there. There’s a bit of The Beach Boys in there. There’s a bit of Johnny Cash, a bit of Bo Diddley. There’s a bit of ‘Louie, Louie’.”
When explaining the reason for taking inspiration from so many artists, Townshend made it clear that he was still working out how The Who was going to sound. “There’s all kinds of stuff in there because what I needed at the time was a composite that would not only hit the marketplace, but would also allow the band to identify,” he said. “You know, unless I’d had that line, ‘People try to put us down just because we get around’, Keith Moon wouldn’t have played on it. It had to have a kind of Beach Boys flash.”
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