My Generation

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Written by: Pete Townshend
Produced by: Shel Talmy
Released: Nov. '65 on Decca
Charts: 5 weeks
Top spot: No. 74

The Who's guitarist, Pete Townshend, supposedly wrote "My Generation," his immortal fuck-off to the elders in his way, on his twentieth birthday, May 19th, 1965, while riding a train from London to Southampton for a television appearance. The song was not a youth-mutiny anthem -- at first. It was a Jimmy Reed-style blues, reflecting Townshend's fears about the impending strictures of adult life, famously captured in the line "Hope I die 'fore I get old." " 'My Generation' was very much about trying to find a place in society," he told ROLLING STONE in 1987. "I was very, very lost. The band was young then. It was believed that its career would be incredibly brief." Instead, "My Generation" became the Who's ticket to legend -- their first British Top Five hit -- and it established Townshend as a fearless and eloquent songwriter. "My Generation" went through months of arranging and rerecording before the Who got it right, in two takes, on October 13th, 1965. Bassist John Entwistle took the solo breaks with crisp, grunting aggression. Roger Daltrey's stuttering vocal and the upward key changes created a vivid, mounting anxiety that climaxed with a studio re-creation of the Who's live gear-trashing finales, with Townshend spewing feedback all over Keith Moon's avalanche drumming. Four decades later, Townshend and Daltrey are all that remain of the original Who, and they still play the song at every show -- now with the fire and wisdom of age.

Appears on: My Generation (Universal)

Next: A Change Is Gonna Come

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