Quadrophenia: Can You See the Real Me? Page #3

---

Yeah, certainly. Is that OK?

That's not yours, my love.

If you saw a teddy boy,

you'd know he was a teddy boy

but if you saw a mod, your mods could

work in an advertising agency,

no-one would know they were mods.

They just looked like a neat kid.

But to other mods,

they gave all the signals.

Maybe a slightly effeminate kid

and that's where

I thought the real courage came.

They used to do their own sewing

and stuff.

These great big guys would say,

"I'll take in those trousers!"

Roger made drainpipes

and put the zips in himself!

He put zips in drainpipes!

It was perfect because for the first

time in generations

you dressed as you wanted to

and at work you probably were

a shipping clerk or a filing clerk.

You were management material.

And you got, "Oh, he's a very tidy

young man,

"he's going up the ladder, mate."

Mods had real strict taste rules

and it was difficult to know

what was in, and what was out.

I remember people talking

about the way to stand outside

the Scene Club, you had to stand

with your hand in your pocket...

All these sort of ways

to maintain your cool.

My hair was a disaster. I hated it.

When I looked in the mirror,

I saw somebody like Art Garfunkel.

Roger had exactly the same problem.

He was constantly

straightening his hair. Dippity-do.

Dippity-do. He found this American

gel that would straighten your hair

long enough to get through a gig.

And I think the main driving force

then was fashion.

But then it became the music

and the other things.

And the other thing is you've to put

it in context of the time,

it was like people identifying

with this new, modern, clean world.

This is Cut My Hair, it's like the

first proper song on the album.

The album should have started

with Cut My Hair because

that's where the story starts.

On Cut My Hair you've got a...

This piano part, very nursery,

gentle piano.

Against which you get the story

of the boy complaining about why

he has to f*** around

with his hair basically.

It's interesting because what

it's about is a mixture of that

refrain when we were young

and the hair was long which was,

"Get your hair cut!"

And suddenly all of that being

turned on its head by

the mod movement where a face

would turn to you and say,

"Get your hair cut."

And you'd think, "Hold on a minute,

you're only three or four

"years older than me, don't f***ing

tell me to get my haircut!"

If you were raised in a modern

neighbourhood, you had to fit in

with those people.

So, we sat down and had our hair cut.

Which I hated.

It had taken me nearly a year

to grow my Beatle fringe

down to here.

I was taken to this guy called

Jack the barber,

more like Sweeney Todd!

I remember going back to my house

with Keith Moon

and smashing the mirror in my room

because I hated it. Horrible.

I kind of rebelled against it

went out and bought myself a jacket

and trousers and I felt OK about it.

Except for my hair.

My initial reaction to it was,

"It's about me."

The essence of Townshend's

writing is that he

writes about the adolescent problems

and they never change

and that's why if you take away

the mod tunic, the mod uniform,

what you're left with is

the universal adolescent problem.

What's happening at the very end

is he's thinking, "This is sh*t."

He can't deal with it.

And at the end you get this abject

self-pity which Jimmy is...

Falls into regularly.

This sense of, "I can't do this."

So, it sets up this thing

that starting at the beginning

of Quadrophenia that he's

becoming disenchanted with

the burden of being a mod,

of trying to fit in,

of having the right shoes,

the right shirt.

He's not getting what he wants.

A gang of nearly 1,000

youths entered the Grand Hotel

in pursuit of two leather-clad

rockers.

South Coast police have warned

that if the fight between rival

gangs of mods and rockers continue

strict security measures will be

in force at railway station both

in London and on the south coast.

Brighton was just one of those

places that was popping.

Say me and my friends went

to a dance hall once,

there was a load of rockers there,

they were taking the mick out of us.

You can't let a load of kids take

the Mickey out of you, can you?

So, what do you do?

Well, you have a punch-up about it.

What do you fight with? With fists!

The first trouble was in Clacton.

And afterwards I think Margate

and then it was Brighton.

You had about 30 little mods

versus three big rockers.

They were all running up,

"Come on, then!" And all this stuff.

We were posing and stuff like that.

It's the rockers that started. They

screw you. What does screw mean?

You know, look you up

and down and think, "That's a funny

"way of dressing." Think you're

a poof or something like that.

The really cool mods hated

the fact that there was this

violence on the beach.

They hated it.

"Bunch of wankers!

Going and fighting with rockers."

Ha! That kind of thing.

The beat they dance to

is another difference

between mods and rockers.

At this mod club, The Chez Don,

in the East End of London

the rhythm is blue

and strong enough to lean against.

The mod girls dance with each other

and no-one bothers to talk

since you can't hear yourself speak.

Rockers don't show their faces here.

It would only lead to trouble.

This is the famous Goldhawk club.

I'm opening the door

to the dance hall.

Along here and on the other side

was a whole bunch of settees

where a lot of necking went on!

And there was kissing and French

kissing and tongues and stuff.

Got a feeling inside

Can't explain

It's a certain kind

Can't explain

I feel hot and cold

Can't explain

Yeah, down in my soul, yeah

Can't explain...

We'd just done Ready Steady Go,

they had been there in the audience,

we went to the Goldhawk Club

and played Can't Explain,

we played it again

and again and again.

The things you've said, well,

maybe they're true...

And I thought,

"God Almighty! What's going on?"

"The Who are playing probably

my favourite song of all time."

They've played I Can't Explain

three times, what's going on?

When I feel blue

But I can't explain

Can't explain

"Play it again, play it again!"

Dah, da-da, dah-da-da!

You know, f***ing glorious night

at the Goldhawk Club that their boys

had gone on Ready Steady Go which was

the big mod programme of the day.

I sort of elected myself as some

kind of delegate and I came here,

I knocked on this door,

this very door we're looking at.

Irish Jack walks forward and says

"There's something we want

to tell you."

I said, "Look, this song is exactly

what we're trying to say."

You've said it for us.

I can't explain because this is what

mods were about.

They couldn't explain.

None of us could explain,

we didn't have the articulation.

So, I said to him

quite patronising, "Jack,

"you want to be to write more

songs for you about the fact you

"can't explain what it is

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes