What's a great song by The Who?

[whiteboyskim]

I know nothing about The Who other than who Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend are. I had a funny thought occur to me last night regarding a short film I'm working on in The Movies but it involves The Who and I don't know what I'm talking about. So I need to know some of their songs and such and I'm too lazy to just hit iTunes and find a title I like. So thoughts and comments are welcome.

[Kevin Grey]

Baba O Riley is, hands down,  my favorite song from them. 

[CeeKay]

Pinball Wizard?

[dbt1949]

Songs from their album Tommy such as Pinball Wizard and in general the whole album.

[LoneStarSpur]

Squeezebox.

 

[olaf]

I like Magic Bus

[Knightshade Dragon]

Songs from their album Tommy such as Pinball Wizard and in general the whole album.

Agreed completely. 

[warning]

Since you asked for my opinion... 

Can't stand The Who.  I know I should like them, I've heard just about everything they've done but they do nothing for me.

Completely overrated.

[DCW]

Can't Explain
My Generation
Won't Get Fooled Again
and the others already mentioned - good stuff.

[walTer]

In 1981 or 2... ugh, hazy, I saw the Who in LA.

It was good, very good.

[Laner]

Won't Get Fooled Again - particularly Daltrey's scream in the middle - is about as definitive a Who moment as you're going to get.

[Exodor]

Since you asked for my opinion... 

Can't stand The Who.  I know I should like them, I've heard just about everything they've done but they do nothing for me.

Completely overrated.

+10000000000

I can't stand the Who.   It does sadden me a little to miss out on brilliant lyrics like

Who are you?
Ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ...

Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?

[Jag]

Ignore Exodar's ignorance as to the brilliance of the band. They are the classic sound of Rock and Roll. Pete's writing and Rogers vocals combine with Moon's drums and Entwhistle's bass created a sound never heard before. What makes the Who great is they can do the pop type songs like Who Are You. Which, by the way, tells a great story of working class angst.

For a great overview for the Movies, take a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_who

As far as great songs, Quadrophenia is probably my favorite album. The sheer power of the music and brilliance of the story makes for it's greatness.

"The one thing that disgusts me about The Who is the way they smashed through every door in the uncharted hallway of rock 'n' roll without leaving much more than some debris for the rest of us to lay claim to." -Eddie Vedder

[unbreakable]

I like The Who.  To pick one, I would have to say Won't Get Fooled Again.

Strangely, I purchased Quadraphenia (sp?) over ten years ago, and still haven't listened to it.  It may still be wrapped 


[edit] actually, what really soured me on The Who is the revelation of what Peter Townsend "researches" in his spare time.

[Eel Snave]

Actually, he was totally cleared of that stuff, which is weird.  They don't usually back down like that.

Edit:  I own "The Who Sell Out."  It's all right.  It reminds me of proto-Britpop, which, depending on your taste, isn't always a good thing.

[Belgedin]

Not sure if it has been mentioned yet, but, "Behind Blue Eyes" is a really great song. I'm not going to lie, though, I think Limp Bizkit sang it better.

[gameoverman]

Here's what I got on my Winamp playlist right now:

I Can't Explain
Magic Bus
Squeeze Box

I liked that earlier sound more than the later arena rock stuff, although I like that later stuff too, just not as much.

[unbreakable]

Actually, he was totally cleared of that stuff, which is weird.  They don't usually back down like that.

Yeah, I know, but his statement that all his... inappropriate... pictures came from "research because he thought he might have been molested" always struck me as a ton of crap.  As much as I like their music, that feeling has really tainted Townsend in my mind.

That has nothing to do with me not listening to Quadraphenia, however.  For some reason, I just never got the urge to listen to it.

[Devil]

The Seeker

[Jag]

Actually, he was totally cleared of that stuff, which is weird.  They don't usually back down like that.

Yeah, I know, but his statement that all his... inappropriate... pictures came from "research because he thought he might have been molested" always struck me as a ton of crap.  As much as I like their music, that feeling has really tainted Townsend in my mind.

I have 2 little kids, if i thought the guy was a pedophile, i would despise him. They didn't find any pictures on any of his 14 computers they confiscated and he used his credit card to access a website once.

"He also stated that his research was part of his longstanding campaign against child pornography. He stated that before his arrest he had formally reported the website he discovered during his research to The Internet Watch Foundation [2] and the organization corroborated his claims in a statement on January 30th 2003."

Also he has strongly supported children's charities with numerous benefit concerts and spoke out against abused children for so many years. Donating millions and millions of dollars, including full album proceeds. These are not the actions of a pedophile. The facts speak for themselves.

From an interview 8 days ago:

That audience has stuck with Townshend through difficult times, ensuring the Who remained one of the world's top live draws despite the shadow cast over their leader in 2003, when Townshend was arrested and cautioned for using his credit card to access a child pornography website.

While most observers have accepted Townshend's defence that he was engaged in research as part of a long-standing campaign against child pornography, a sense of what he felt at the centre of the controversy surfaces in a song on the new album inspired by Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. "When I saw the film, what I think I felt was pain, and I think it was my pain," he volunteers. "It was the unbelievable f***ing humiliation that I'd been through when I was arrested."

It was not a subject I was particularly intent on raising during the interview, yet Townshend kept returning to it, notably when I made the observation that this new incarnation of the Who were celebratory rather than angry, the old tensions of performance seemingly gone.

"I used to find stuff on the internet and go into the most incredible rage at the idea of something as pointless as the male economics of masturbation, that the pornography industry should be so careless about vulnerable individuals, whether they're children or just models," he says.

Referring back to his own memories of abandonment and abuse, he says: "There was a huge anger there, and I think a lot of it came out when I performed. But having technically committed a crime in the process of research, I remember suddenly feeling, 'I really do have to stop this. I have to stop being angry.' "

[DamageInc]

The Seeker

+1 and Boris the Spider

[Devil]

+1 and Boris the Spider

+2 My Wife

[WorkingMike]

"Behind Blue Eyes" is hands down their best song. "Won't Get Fooled Again" should be played by everyone in America every election day. "Happy Jack" is the best of the lesser known songs. "Eminence front" can be fit into a variety of film situations.

You'd be surprised how many of these songs you already know. They have leaked into the collective unconscious.

The Who down in Whoville kick serious ass, the riffs from the raff doth always surpass

[Jag]

Lesser known favorites of mine are Naked Eye, The Real Me, Drowned (great cover done by Phish), the Relay and Love Ain't for Keeping.

Little known fact, in Baba O'Reily the synthesizer in the beginning is actually the vital statistics of Meher Baba (an Indian Guru) programmed in and played through a synthesizer. The song was actually supposed to be part of the Lifehouse Project, his next project after Tommy.

[JLu]

I like Teenage Wasteland a lot...  (ducks)

Only song I don't like by them is Who Are You? -- I can't even estimate the times I've listened to Tommy, Quadrophenia and Who's Next.  I can't really pick 'a' great song out of the bunch but a ton of great suggestions above.

[Kurt Stevens]

I second The Real Me. Great song.