Quadrophenia

I think that before I go any further I should give you my history with Quadrophenia. Three days after my 16^th birthday I saw The Who for the first time, it was amazing, and I remember my brother talking about how much he wanted to hear Sea and Sand, which they did play, but not really knowing the song myself. At this point in time I loved The Who but had never really heard Quadrophenia, I know crazy, right! A few months later my brother told me that I needed to listen to Quadrophenia and then proceeded to lend me his copy. I listened to those two discs pretty much constantly for…I don’t even remember how long. I do remember that I was reading The Return of the King for the first time and now the two are strangely linked in my mind. I listened to Quadrophenia so much because it is amazing, but I don’t think that at the time I really understood what the album would mean to me.

When I was grade 12 I was having a difficult time, all I wanted was to be done with high school and everything that went along with it. One day I went into my room after school and put on Quadrophenia, I turned it up real loud and laid down my floor. For some reason this seemed to help, all the aggression and anger that is held in the album was cathartic, and the one song that I played over and over again was the title track. There are no lyrics on Quadrophenia, the song, but somehow whenever I listen to the song it just feels like me. There is not a proper way to describe the feeling that I get when I listen to Quadrophenia, but there is just something about it that speaks to me. Whenever I get feeling sad, mad, annoyed, or crazy I will crank this song and the world will start to feel right again.

Musically Quadrophenia is amazing, it explores all four of themes that will be played throughout the rest of the album and weaves them together in a way that most composers only wish they could write. It sets up so much without revealing too much, and it makes you excited for what is to come. Every time that I hear the guitar it kills me, I close my eyes and just absorb the music. For a song that doesn’t have lyrics or vocals it expresses so much emotion, more then you could ever imagine to be possible.

The other night I had Quadrophenia, the song, cranked and I thought to myself I can’t believe that I am going to get to hear this song live! And it made me so excited for the concert. I think that my life will be complete after hearing this song live…I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it really will be such an amazing experience for me.  I can’t wait!!

 

The Real Me

At the end of I Am The Sea you hear Rodger’s voice echo the words “Can you see the real me, can you?” and then BAM the music hits you in the face. The Real Me is a song that makes you take notice; after the quiet sea sounds that dominates the opening this is quite a contrast. There is urgency and fear that makes the listener sit up and really listen to what is being said. When it comes down to it The Real Me is the ultimate angst anthem. When you are teenager this song speaks to you.

 

In The Real Me the main character, whose name is Jimmy, is trying to figure out who he really is. He goes to a shrink, his mother, and a priest and asks if they can see the real him.  I’m sure that a lot of people go through this sort of episode during their life, where they feel like they act differently with different people and that none of those facades are really them. Jimmy is trying to find his real self, but each of those people sees him differently. If you read the liner notes you will discover that Jimmy believes that he has a mental illness similar to schizophrenia called quadrophenia, which means that he has four different personalities. Throughout the album the listener can hear the four personalities come through in the themes.

My favourite part of The Real Me is the bass line. In pretty much every song ever written you get just a standard bass line that carries the song along but doesn’t really add much depth to the music, this, however, is never the case with a John Entwhistle bass line. In this song the bass line acts a sort of counter melody; it is very pronounced and has more prominence then the guitar. I often find myself singing along with the bass when listening to The Real Me and I can’t say that I actually do that with many other songs. This bass line is the perfect demonstration of one really awesome thing about The Who, they weren’t afraid to think outside the box. If they wanted to do it, and they thought it sounded good, they did it. AND the really cool thing is that they had the talent to back these ideas up. The other example of this is the horns in The Real Me which were also played by John Entwhistle. The talent was there and they incorporated the talent into the songs which makes them so much more epic!

The Real Me is such a great way to start off this album; it grabs your attention and makes you interested. The music is amazing and the lyrics are one hundred percent relatable. It will always be one of my favourite songs.