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Roger Daltrey sang the lead vocals with a stutter, which was very unusual. After recording two takes of the song normally, their manager Kit Lambert suggested to Daltrey that he stutter to sound like a British kid on speed.
Pete Townshend wrote this while The Who were on their first tour. In a 1987 Rolling Stone magazine interview, Townshend explained: "'My Generation' was very much about trying to find a place in society. I was very, very lost. The band was young then. It was believed that its career would be incredibly brief." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
Townshend wrote this for rebellious British youths known as "Mods." It expressed their feeling that older people just don't get it.
This contains the famous line, "I hope I die before I get old." Who drummer Keith Moon did, dying of a drug overdose in 1978.
This song went through various stages as they tried to perfect it. It began as a slow song with a blues feel, and at one point had hand claps and multiple key changes. The final product was at a much faster tempo than the song was conceived; it was Kit Lambert's idea to speed it up.
This is the highest charting Who song in the UK, but it never cracked the Top-40 in America, where they were less known. In the UK the album was also called My Generation, but in America it was titled The Who Sing My Generation.
This featured one of the first bass solos in Rock history. John Entwistle used a new-on-the-market Danelectro bass to play it, but he kept breaking strings trying to record it. A bit of a bummer that replacement strings weren't available, as he had to go out and buy an entire new bass.
Entwistle was the least visible member of the band, and his bass solos on this song threw off directors when The Who would perform the song on TV shows. When it got to his part, the cameras would often go to Pete Townshend, and his fingers wouldn't be moving. Entwistle played the solos using a pick, since their manager Kit Lambert didn't think fingers recorded well. Most of Entwistle's next recordings were done with fingers.
The BBC refused to play this at first because they did not want to offend people with stutters. When it became a huge hit, they played it.
In 1965, Daltrey claimed he would kill himself before reaching 30 because he didn't want to get old. He continued to performs the song, explaining that it is about an attitude, not a physical age.
In September 1967, The Who performed this on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Moon set his drums to explode after the performance, but the technical crew had already done so. The resulting explosion burned Townshend's hair and permanently damaged his hearing.
Shel Talmy, who produced this track, was fired the next year. Talmy filed a lawsuit and won extensive royalties from future albums.
The ending of this song is electric mayhem, with Keith Moon pounding anything he can find on his drum kit and Townshend flipping his pickups on an off, something he also did on the album opener "Out in the Street." Townshend and Daltrey go back and forth on the vocals, intentionally stomping on each other to add to the chaos.
This was covered by Iron Maiden, who was usually the Who's polar opposite both musically and lyrically. One connection they share is the BBC-TV series Top of the Pops. Performances on the show were customarily lip-synched, but The Who performed live on the show in 1972. In 1980, Iron Maiden also performed live, and was the first band to do so since The Who. Maiden put their version of "My Generation" on the B-side to the single for "Lord of the Flies." (thanks, Brett - Edmonton, Canada)
Green Day recorded this for their 1992 album Kerplunk!. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
When teen pop singer Hilary Duff covered this as a B-side for her 2005 single "Someone's Watching Over Me," she made the curious decision to rewrite some of the lyrics. "I hope I don't die before I get old," doesn't really have the same rock 'n' roll attitude as Townshend's original words, and her rendition caused some consternation among Who fans.
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Now last but not least:
I think Pete and Roger were and are both hot. ;)
P.S. And speaking of Behind Blue Eyes, I heard the most gorgeous, as in made me want to cry, version by Pete Townshend which I think is on his Life House Chronicles recording. It's a newer one, and words fail me in describing it!
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Yes, he did die of a drug overdose. Sleeping pills I believe. But he did drive a (not his) car into a pool trying to escape the cops at a hotel and chipped a tooth in the process. And, alcohol is classified as a drug. What else would it be? (Im 13 and can tell you all this..)
He drove into a pool and didn't die.
He went into a hotel he was registered in with a woman at 2am and she wasn't allowed in because she wasn't registered. He then went outside and drove through the front of the foyer and said take this to my room its registered! so ha
That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard, and I have heard some dumb things. No offense Edward, but you do realize there are lots of rumors about the US amongst Europeans that aren't exactly so. For your edification, Title 27 Chapter 8 of the U.S. Code regulates alcohol, and it most certainly does establish it as a drug, to be regulated by the Treasury Department - a throw back to the old days when Moonshiners weren't paying taxes on their distilled spirits. Perhaps you are confused because the Food & Drug Admministration does not have regulatory authority obver alcohol. But the Gov't certainly does classify Alcohol as a drug. What else would they classify it as, a Nutrient?
and Keith Moon!!
Now where's your point, girl??!!
And yes, Pete did lose his hearing for about half an hour.
2. Keith Takes a handful of hemenivrin, his medicine for alcoholism, and goes to sleep.
3. wakes up way early in the morning, grills a steak, downs it and washes it down with a glass of wine, and takes more pills.
4.Goes to sleep- doesnt wake up
Keith Moon DID die of a drug overdose. He was prescribed sleeping pills when he was a rehab outpatient, and the pills were meant to be taken under the supervision of a doctor. He took some, went to sleep, woke up, and took some more. Yes, he drove his cars through a wall and into a swimming pool, but neither of those incidents were fatal. Perhaps you were mixing him with Brian Jones, who drowned in his swimming pool?