One of the things that was most surprising in Pete
Townshend’s excellent autobiography Who I
Am was his description of the genesis of The Who’s second album. In essentials the story is the same as the
one that we have all known for years; for contractual reasons each of the band
had to produce a minimum of two songs for their as yet untitled second
album. As Dave Marsh commented about 30
years ago in Before I Get Old, which still remains the best overview of The
Who, it was peculiar that having only just won an internal battle to be the
band’s primary songwriter that Townshend would allow himself to be pushed into
this position when he would have to jostle for position in the songwriting
stakes with the other three members.
However, it didn’t work like that at all.
Whereas Entwhistle provided two great tracks, and Keith Moon
(with a little help from his friends) provided a pleasant throwaway song in a
vaguely Merseybeat vogue and also the two and a half minutes of sheet musical
anarchy which I have insisted will be played at my funeral (Cobwebs and Strange), Daltrey’s efforts
produced one very short song and left a bloody great hole in the running
order.
So Kit Lambert suggested that Townshend (who was the most
arty-farty one of the group) indulge his artistic sensibilities and produce a
mini opera. So far all well and good,
but it is the contents of this work (entitled A Quick One While He’s Away) which astounds and amazes. It has always been one of my favourites of
Townshend’s long-form works – I like it much more than RAEL, as much as the best bits of Tommy and almost as much as Quadrophenia,
but I have always presumed (as did Dave Marsh) that the story was nebulus to
say the least. It appears to be the story of an unnamed young lady whose swain
has been gone “for almost a year”, and who succumbs to temptation and does what
she shouldn’t have done with an older fellow known as Ivor the Engine
Driver. However, according to Townshend
it is a song which aludes to the physical, emotional (and possibly sexual)
abuse which Townshend suffered as a boy at the hands of his mad grandmother
‘Denny’. For reasons that remain
obscure, grandmother ‘Denny’ suffered a major nervous breakdown and Townshend’s
parents, who were having marital difficulties of their own, decided that it
would be a good idea for her to have some company, so packed off pre-teen Pete
to go and live with her. The scars of
that sojourn remain with him still.
If you relisten to A Qicik
One While He’s Away, but in your inner
ear substitute the opening lines with “His
mum’s been gone for almost a year” and all the way through substitute the
unnamed female protagonist of the song with a frightened and precociously
intelligent 8-year-old boy, then suddenly the whole thing makes an enourmous
amount more sense. The seemingly
childish nature of the lyrics become chillingly aposite when you realise they
are, indeed, about a child and his experiences, and that furthermore said child
is actually the person who wrote, and sings much of, the song. The section where the unnamed protagonist
climbs on to Ivor the Engine Driver’s knee and later “has a nap” becomes a vile
piece of imagery as powerful as anything else that Townshend has ever come up
with, and you can even imagine the singer in the ‘soon be home’ section being
an anxious mother playing trains with her little boy.
My favourite rendition of this song has always been the one
filmed for the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in 1968 and included in the
1979 movie The Kids are Alright. I have always loved the way that Townshend
screams “you’re all forgiven” at the end in an almost cathartic rush of emotion. If you view the events which actually
happened to him as recounted in Who I Am
as filtered through his spiritual beliefs from the Meher Baba movement then you
suddenly realise quite how cathartic that cry of “you’re all forgiven!”
actually is.
It appears that Townshend did forgive his family for what
had happened to him and that the account in Who
I Am which is, itself, pretty damn carthartic is the last word he is going to say on the
matter. I think that Townshend – a man
by the way for whom I have the greatest respect – has been very, very brave in
confronting these demons. I still have
not confronted many of mine, and doubt whether I would dare to do so in such a
public manner. I hope that at last he is
at peace.
BTW: This video is NOT the Rock and Roll Circus one, which to my surprise isn't on YouTube, but a slightly out of tune one from Monterey. But what I say about the cods still applies...
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