John Entwistle
Bass, Horns, Vocals
Roger
Daltrey Lead Vocals
Keith
Moon Percussion, vocals
Pete
Townshend Remainder [except where noted
below]
Front
cover photography and design by Graham Hughes
from an idea by Roger Daltrey. [Ethan Russell's
original idea for the cover was to combine head
shots of the four members of The Who into one
face. The final cover photo was shot August 24,
1973 at Graham Hughes photo studio at 9 Rathbone
Place, London. It was Roger's idea to paint the
"Who" logo on the back of Jimmy's
parka.]
Inside
and back cover photography, book photography and
art direction by Ethan A. Russell. [The photo
booklet cost £10,000 and was shot over two weeks
in London, Brighton, Goring and Cornwall]
Conceived
by Pete Townshend and Ethan A. Russell. |
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Mod kid
played by Chad [Terry Kennett. He was a 23-year old paint
sprayer from Battersea discovered by Pete in The
Butcher's Arms pub near Ramport Studios]. Hair by Dallas
Amos.
All tracks
written by Pete Townshend and published by Fabulous
Music, Ltd.
Produced
by The Who [except where noted below]
Pre-production
(with Pete Townshend): Kit Lambert
Engineer: Ron
Nevison
Mixing
continuity and engineering assistance: Ron Fawcus
Studio
earphone mix: Bobby Pridden
(Special
effects recorded by Rod Houison, Ron Nevison and Pete
Townshend)
Recorded
at "The Kitchen" in Thessally Road, Battersea
[except where noted], while building was still in
progress. Ronnie "Lane's Mobile Sound" served
as control room while ours was being finished. Mixed at
Eel Pie Sound [a/k/a Pete's Garage in Twickenham].
Liner
notes by Brian Cady.
Quadrophenia was originally
released in the U.K. as Track 2657 013 on October 26,
1973. However, it appears that due to a vinyl shortage
caused by the OPEC oil embargo, only a limited number of
copies got to stores before production had to be
halted. Most British Who fans failed to find a copy
until after The Who's U.K. tour. In the U.K., Quadrophenia
reached the #2 position being held out of the top spot by
David Bowie's Pinups.
In the U.S. Quadrophenia
was MCA2 10004 released on November 3, 1973. It
reached #2 in the Billboard charts being beaten out of
first place by Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
Quadrophenia
began shortly after the May 1972 session to attempt to
create a follow-up to Who's Next. Pete originally
intended a mini-opera about the members of The Who called
"Rock Is Dead - Long Live Rock." Ultimately his
attention went more to a central character like Tommy,
here called Jimmy, who would be a Who fan of the Mod era
but would also embody The Who. Townshend had played with
this idea before; at one point in Tommy's genesis, Pete
planned to have parts of Tommy's personality represented
by The Who. Another part of the form of Quadrophenia
came from the failure to film Lifehouse.
Instead of creating a filmscript that would probably
never be made, Pete planned Quadrophenia as an
album that would be the soundtrack to a never-made film
with both music and sound effects and a photo album to
supply the images.
![](images/quadwho.jpg) |
Pete said that during the mix
he had 16-track tapes piled up to the ceiling.
Roger also estimated that Quadrophenia was
reduced from 15 hours of recorded music. Pete
said he wrote "about fifty songs for this
and creamed off the best" and that Quadrophenia
could have been a quadruple album. What those
other songs were is unknown but a few of them
turned up on the Quadrophenia Soundtrack. |
![](images/prayingjimmy.jpg) |
Pete
Townshend: "The whole conception of Quadrophenia
was geared to quadraphonic, but in a creative sort of
way. I mean I wanted themes to sort of emerge from
corners. So you start to get the sense of the fourness
being literally speaker for speaker. And also in the rock
parts the musical thing would sort of jell together up to
the thunder clap, then everything would turn slowly from
quad into mono and you'd have this solid sort of rock
mono ... then a thunder clap and back out again. We spent
months mixing it and then found out that MCA was using
the CBS quad system and ... you might as well forget it.
So our engineer remixed it in the same manner that it was
mixed in stereo, the same sort of creative
approach."
How
successful he was with that mix is still a matter of
contention among Who fans. Is it a good mix, a bad mix or
a technically flawed mix? In any case the rest of The Who
hated the mix, particularly Roger, and their reaction was
the first of several disappointments for Pete stemming
from Quadrophenia. John remixed the album for the
1979 film but Roger thought it was worse than the
original. Pete and Roger were both involved in the 1996
remix. Their pleasure at the results was one of the
primary reasons for the 1996-97 Quadrophenia tour.
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I Am The Sea
(2'08)
Pete
Townshend: "Our story is set on a rock in
the middle of a stormy sea..." And where did
the cat come from? In live performance, this was
presented totally on tape in quadraphonic sound
coming from all sides of the arena.
The
Real Me (3'22)
Pete
Townshend: "Gets everything going with a
quick look in at the psychiatrists, at home and
even a quick visit to the local vicar. Mental
security is unfortunately not
obtained."
The
demo version has the additional lines, "Rock
& Roll's going do me in; do me an evil wrong.
Funny how your best friends turn out; it was good
for oh so long. I stop myself getting letters and
then the people try to turn me back. Publisher
wants my memoirs and the limousines are black.
Can you see the real me, rock & roll?"
On his liner notes to Scoop 3, where the
demo appears, Pete says these lines were to have
been sung by The Godfather. The Who's version was
released as a single in the U.S. January 12, 1974
with b-side "I'm One." It peaked at #92
in Billboard and #82 in Cash
Box. The ending was edited to cut back to
an instrumental section prior to the final
"Can you see the real mememememe" and
faded out which gave it a running time of 3'26.
It was also released as a single in France,
Belgium and Japan. A live version appears on The
Who & Special Guests Live at the Royal Albert
Hall video (2000) |
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Quadrophenia
(6'15)
Pete
Townshend: "The four-personality concept
grew out of a naive understanding of
schizophrenia - a misunderstanding of
schizophrenia. Jimmy is a kid who suffers from
schizophrenia, and when he takes pills, his
schizophrenia divides up and he suffers from
quadrophenia." This was only played live
during the British leg of the 1973 tour and was
not revived until 1996. |
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Cut
My Hair (3'46)
News
read by John Curle
Pete
Townshend: "A domestic interlude. The boy
recalls a row with his folks that culminated in
his leaving home. We also hear a news broadcast
mentioning riots in Brighton between Mods and
Rockers, events at which he was present the
previous week."
This
song quotes from The High Numbers' single
"Zoot Suit."
"Cut
My Hair" was only played live during the
British leg of the 1973 tour and was not revived
until 1996.
The
Punk And The Godfather (5'10)
Pete
Townshend: "The hero goes to a rock concert.
He queues up, pays his money and he decides he is
going to see the stars backstage as they come out
the stage door. And one of them comes up and says
'fuck off!' And he suddenly realizes that there's
nothing really happening in rock & roll. It's
just another cross on his list." This song
quotes from The Who's "My Generation."
On the U.S. album this was called "The Punk
Meets The Godfather." |
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I'm One
(2'39)
Pete
Townshend: "When I was a nipper I felt that
the guitar was all I had. I wasn't tough enough
to be in a gang, I wasn't good looking enough to
be in with the birds, not clever enough to make
it at school, not good enough on my feet to be
good football player, I was a fucking loser. I
think everyone feels that way at some point. And
somehow being a Mod - even though I was too old
to be a Mod really - I wrote this song with that
in mind. Jimmy, the hero of the story, is kinda
thinking he hasn't got much going for him but at
least he's one." A live version with Eddie
Vedder on lead vocals can be found on The
Who & Special Guests Live at the Royal Albert
Hall video (2000) |
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The
Dirty Jobs (4'30)
Piano
by Chris Stainton. Stainton, replacing the usual
Who-keyboardists Nicky Hopkins or Al Kooper, was
an ex-member of Joe Cocker's Grease Band.
Pete
Townshend: "Suitably disenchanted with his
former religion Rock & Roll, he gets a job as
a dustman. Unfortunately, his extremely left-wing
views are not appreciated by his work mates and
he passes on to greater things. No sound effects
were available to get the stink across so we used
a brass band. Incongruous enough?"
Roger
Daltrey: "He gets a job as a dustman like
most kids have to do when they leave school at
fifteen. There's nothing much else. He gets
pissed off with that. Of course, when you do
something that stinks there's always a lot of
other stinky things around. And he gets mixed up
with the stinkiest thing of all, politics!"
Dropped from the live act after one performance
on October 28, 1973 and not revived until
1996.
Helpless
Dancer (Roger's Theme) (2'32)
Pete
Townshend: "We get a real look at where the
aggression comes from. Jimmy has a conscience
that bites fairly deeply. His frustration with
the world only makes him more angry, even
bitter."
The
version of this song on the 1973 tour featured
live horn work by John. It was dropped for the
last three shows of the 1973 North American tour
and not revived until 1996. |
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Is
It In My Head? (3'46)
Pete
Townshend: "The track that shows Jimmy,
although an ordinary kid, has not only a
conscience, but also self doubt. He worries about
his own part, and feels maybe his outlook is
clouded by pessimism."
Produced
by The Who and associate producer Glyn Johns.
Recorded at Olympic Studios, London May 1972.
Dropped from the live act after one performance
on October 28, 1973 and not revived until 1996. |
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I've Had Enough
(6'14)
Pete
Townshend: "A lot happens around this bit,
much of it in the album cover story. Briefly,
Jimmy 'snaps' when he sees a girl he particularly
likes with a friend of his. In a desperately
self-pitiful state, he smashes up his prize
scooter and decides to go to Brighton where he
had such a good time with his friends chasing
Rockers and eating fish and chips."
Dropped
from the live act after one performance on
October 28, 1973 and not revived until 1996. |
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5:15
(5'00)
Piano
by Chris Stainton. Recorded June 27, 1973.
Pete
Townshend: "His train journey down to
Brighton, sandwiched between two city gents is
notable for the rather absurd number of purple
hearts he consumes in order to wile away the
time. He goes through a not entirely pleasant
series of ups and downs as he thinks about the
gaudier side of life as a teenager that we see in
newspapers like the News Of The World. '5:15' was
written in Oxford Street and Carnaby Street while
I was killing time between appointments. I must
try it again sometime, it seems to
work!"
Unlike
most everything else on the album, Pete did not
make a demo of this. The music was written in the
studio on the day of recording. On September 28,
1973 it was released as a single in the U.K.
prior to the album's release. It went to #20. It
was also released as a single throughout the
world with the exception of the U.S. The Quadrophenia
Soundtrack remix was issued as a single
everywhere in September 1979. It did not chart in
Britain but reached #45 in the U.S. Billboard
charts and #53 in Cash Box. The
b-side was the remixed version of "I'm
One." Live versions can be found on Join
Together (1989), the 30 Years Of
Maximum R&B video (1979), The
Blues To The Bush (1999) and The Who
& Special Guests Live at the Royal Albert
Hall video (2000). |
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Sea And Sand
(5'01)
Pete
Townshend: "Arriving at Brighton, Jimmy
brightens up a bit...get the pun? He talks about
rows at home and is a little sarcastic as he
recalls the evening on the beach with his former
girlfriend. This is 1965 and the Mod scene is
already falling apart - and what does he do but
go to Brighton just to remember. The crazy days
when 300,000 Mod kids from London descended on
that little beach town were only three weeks ago,
but he's already living in the past."
The
ending quotes from The High Numbers' single
"I'm The Face." Pete's demo version was
released on his Scoop 3 album. |
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Drowned (5'28)
Piano
by Chris Stainton
Pete
Townshend: "This song, included in Quadrophenia,
should actually stand alone. I think in a sense
it does. When the tragic hero of Q sings
it, it is desperate and nihilistic. In fact, it's
a love song, God's love being the ocean and our
'selves' being the drops of water that make it
up. Meher Baba said, 'I am the Ocean of Love.' I
want to drown in that ocean, the 'drop' will then
be an ocean itself. Anyway a tale - when
recording this song it rained so hard in
Battersea where our studio is that the walls were
flowing with sheets of water. Chris Stainton
played piano in a booth and when the take was
finished he opened the door and about 500 gallons
gushed out! Another glorious coincidence. The
take on the album is the one." The most
often performed song from Quadrophenia
during The Who's live shows probably because it
gave the band room to improvise. In the 1996-97
edition it was performed solo by Pete on acoustic
guitar. Live versions can be found on the Who
Rocks America video (1982), the 30
Years Of Maximum R&B video
(1974) and The Who & Special Guests
Live at the Royal Albert Hall video
(2000). |
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Bell Boy (Keith's Theme)
(4'56)
Recorded
June 1, 1973.
Pete
Townshend: "He meets an old Ace Face who's
now a bellhop at the very hotel the Mods tore up.
And he looks on Jimmy with a mixture of pity and
contempt, really, and tells him, in effect,
'Look, my job is shit and my life is a tragedy.
But you - look at you, you're dead!'"
A live version with Keith can be found on the 30
Years Of Maximum R&B video (1974). |
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Dr. Jimmy (including
"Is It Me?" - John's Theme)
(8'42)
Pete
Townshend: "'Dr. Jimmy' was meant to be a
song which somehow gets across the explosive,
abandoned wildness side of his character. Like a
bull run amok in a china shop. He's damaging
himself so badly that he can get to the point
where he's so desperate that he'll take a closer
look at himself. The part where he says, 'What is
it, I'll take it. Who is she, I'll rape it.'
That's really the way I see Keith Moon in his
most bravado sort of states of mind."
A live version can be found on Who's Last (1982). |
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The Rock (6'37)
Pete
Townshend: "It's getting in a boat, going
out to sea and sitting on a rock waiting for the
waves to knock him off that makes him review
himself. He ends up with the sum total of
frustrated toughness, romanticism, religion,
daredevil - desperation, but a starting point for
anybody." This was only played live during
the British leg of the 1973 tour and was not
revived until 1996. |
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Love Reign
O'er Me (Pete's Theme) (5'48)
Produced
by The Who and associate producer Glyn Johns.
Recorded May 1972 at Olympic Studios, London with
additional tracks recorded at The Kitchen June 8,
1973.
Pete
Townshend: "'Love Reign O'er Me' is similar
to 'Drowned' in meaning. This refers to Meher
Baba's one time comment that rain was a blessing
from God; that thunder was God's Voice. It's
another plea to drown, only this time in the
rain. Jimmy goes through a suicide crisis. He
surrenders to the inevitable, and you know, you
know, when it's over and he goes back to town
he'll be going through the same shit, being in
the same terrible family situation and so on, but
he's moved up a level. He's weak still, but
there's a strength in that weakness. He's in
danger of maturing." It was released as a
single in the U.S. October 27, 1973 where it
peaked at #76 in the Billboard
charts and #54 in Cash Box. It was
edited down to 3'11 with a different ending. The
b-side was "Water." It was also
released as a single in Belgium and the
Netherlands where the b-side was "Is It In
My Head." Live versions can be found
on Who's Last (1982), the Who Rocks
America video (1982), Join Together (1989),
The Who/Live featuring the rock opera Tommy
video (1989) and the 30 Years Of Maximum
R&B video (1982). |
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