I've loved this song since it came out.
A friend once remarked how he liked it because he could really hear the other band members. That was intentional, I think. The whole point of "Quadrophenia" was to play on the one-in-four, four-in-one theme. If you listen closely, you can hear how Pete Townshend slowly factors his guitar out of the song to "reveal" the others. In the first verse (not the chorus) he plays clipped chords; in the second verse, his chords are even more clipped; by the the third verse, he's gone completely, leaving us to wonder just who is leading the band!
It must have been like herding cats to lead The Who. There probably never was a better collection of accomplished rock musicians together on one stage. And this was Keith Moon's best drumming! Three years later in 1976, he already looked and sounded exhausted to me. He was dead a few short years after that.
Townshend really lets them shine in this song, but he herds them together around the 4 min 25 sec mark before they all splinter off again. Still amazing.
1 comment:
And of course I do love it, although I haven't paid as much attention to The Who as I should have over the years. I'm gonna work on that now. Back to school - the school of rock!
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