The Who song inspired by a night out with the Sex Pistols
On paper, the divisions between classic rock gods The Who and punk rock saviours the Sex Pistols are clear. One is a mod-influenced hard rock act that helped pioneer stadium rock and all of the excesses that rock operas had in them. The other was a destructive anti-stadium catastrophe of epic proportions, one that made enough noise to survive for a few years before spiralling out of control and burning out in a blaze of glory.
But the reality of the situation was that The Who and the Sex Pistols shared more than a little bit of DNA. Specifically, the intense sound and massive energy of The Who proved to be an essential building block for all British punks, whether they wanted to admit it or not. Pete Townshend was always keen to stay on top of new trends, so he wound up seeing a few punk acts in the clubs around London while the genre was at its peak.
“The amazing thing was that the concerts were so hectic, so violent. Particularly in the first six months of the thing, with bands like The Clash, The Vibrators and Sex Pistols. I mean the Sex Pistols couldn’t actually play in public. It was that bad, they had to play unannounced concerts,” Townshend told the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio programme in 1979.
Adding: “Consequently, there is very, very few people who ever saw them appear. I never saw them appear. But I saw several other bands. I used to go to clubs and stand and get insulted. Just stand there and just endure these snotty little kids saying ‘boring old fart!’ (laughs).”
Townshend had a soft spot for the Pistols, even comparing them to The Who in their early days. “My favourite album of the period was the Sex Pistols album, which was produced by Chris Thomas, Never Mind The Bollocks. I think ‘Pretty Vacant’, that track ‘We’re so pretty… we’re so pretty, vacant’, I think it’s like a modern ‘My Generation’,” Townshend said. “It’s not as obvious as ‘My Generation’. But it’s the same kind of thing.”
As it turned out, the Pistols would be an unintended inspiration behind The Who’s 1978 hit ‘Who Are You’. After having to sit through a day-long meeting with notorious music manager Allen Klein, Townshend got quite the surprise when he bumped into guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook at the pub. The Pistols were still very much an active concern – ‘Who Are You’ was recorded on October 4th, 1977, just 24 days before the release of Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols.
“‘Who Are You’ was written about meeting Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols after an awful 13-hour encounter with Allen Klein who, in my personal opinion, is the awesome rock leech-godfather,” Townshend wrote in the liner notes to the Who Are You album. “In one sense the song is more about the demands of new friendship than blood-letting challenge.”
“Roger’s aggressive reading of my nihilistic lyric redirected its function by the simple act of singing ‘Who the fuck are you…’ when I had written ‘Who, who, who are you…'” Townshend added. “Steve and Paul became real ‘mates’ of mine in the English sense. We socialized a few times. Got drunk (well, I did) and I have to say to their credit, for a couple of figurehead anarchists, they seemed sincerely concerned about my decaying condition at the time.”
Check out ‘Who Are You’ down below.
