Oasis My Generation (Live)



Fucking brilliant!

Wikipedia says...

"My Generation" was one of the biggest early hits of the British rock group The Who, and quickly became their anthem. Written by Pete Townshend in 1965 for rebellious British youths called Mods, it expressed their feeling that older people "just don't get it". He reportedly wrote the song on a train and is said to have been inspired by the Queen Mother who is alleged to have had Townshend's 1935 Packard hearse towed off a street in Belgravia because she was offended by the sight of it during her daily drive through the neighbourhood [1]. Townshend has also credited Mose Allison's Young Man Blues as the inspiration for the song, saying "Without Mose I wouldn't have written My Generation." [2]

It has entered the rock and roll pantheon as one of the most celebrated, cited, and referenced songs in the idiom; it was named the eleventh greatest song by Rolling Stone on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Perhaps the most striking element of the song is the lyrics, considered one of the most distilled statements of youthful rebellion in rock history. The "attitude" of the track alone helped make it an acknowledged forebear of the punk rock movement,also considered to be the first punk rock song. One of the most quoted--and patently rewritten--lines in rock history is I hope I die before I get old, famously sneered out by lead singer Roger Daltrey.

Like many of The Who's earlier "mod" output, the song boasts clear influences of American R&B, most explicitly in the call and response form of the verses; Daltrey would sing a line, and the backing vocalists Townshend and John Entwistle would respond with the refrain "Talkin' 'bout my generation":

People try to put us down

(Talkin' 'bout my generation)

Just because we get around

(Talkin' 'bout my generation)

The vocal melody of "My Generation":

is an example of the shout-and-fall modal frame. (Middleton 1990, p.207)

Another salient aspect of "My Generation" is Daltrey's delivery: an angry and frustrated stutter. Various stories exist as to the reason for this distinct delivery. One is that the song began as a slow "talking" blues number without the stutter, but after being inspired by John Lee Hooker's "Stuttering Blues", Townshend reworked the song into its present form. Another reason is that it was suggested to Daltrey that he stutter to sound like a British mod on speed. It is also proposed, albeit less frequently, that the stutter was introduced to give the group a framework for implying the expletive "fuck" in the lyrics: "Why don't you all fu.. fu.. fade away!" However, Producer Shel Talmy insisted it was simply one of those "happy accidents" that he thought they should keep. The BBC initially refused to play "My Generation" because they did not want to offend people who stutter, but they reversed their decision after it became a huge hit.

The instrumentation of the song duly reflects the lyrics: fast, aggressive, and laced with attitude. Significantly, "My Generation" also featured one of the first bass solos (by John Entwistle) in rock history. The song's coda features an explosive burst of drumming from Keith Moon, whereupon the song breaks down somewhat awkwardly in spurts of guitar feedback from Pete Townshend, rather than fading out or ending cleanly on the tonic.

The song was released as a Single in November 1965, reaching number two in the UK and number 74 in America. [3] "My Generation" also appeared on The Who's 1965 debut album, My Generation (known as The Who Sings My Generation in the USA), and in greatly extended form on their live album Live At Leeds (1970)."