Quadrophenia: Can You See the Real Me? Page #6

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with Keith as a singer,

because he acted, rather than sang.

..Carry the bloody baggage out

Bell boy

Always running at

someone's heel...

I loved the way he did that.

It's the kind of thing you could

imagine a bellboy doing,

working at a posh hotel.

"Cor blimey,"

like this, with his mates,

and then when after a tip,

it's, "Hello, sir."

I was uncomfortable with turning

the bellboy into a comedy figure,

because I thought, "This is the only

time that the Ace Face sings."

..Remembering when stars

were in reach

I wander in early to work...

A couple of times, I said to him,

"It's not a comedy."

..Spend my day licking boots

for my perks...

Whoosh! That would have gone...

..The beach is a place

where a man can feel

He's the only

soul in the world that's real...

What was Keith like in 1973?

Just a little bit more drunk than

he was in 1972!

The extraordinary thing about Keith

was that whatever you felt

about him as a drummer,

and I didn't think very much

of him as a drummer...

It's kind of sacrilege,

isn't it? But I didn't.

He listened.

People would call him

a sloppy drummer, and he never

was a sloppy drummer.

He had an extraordinary metronome.

He made the music dramatic.

What he wouldn't do is play,

"Boom, boom, bup, ba, boom, ba."

He'd be, "Blrr-plplrprl!

Bing, bing, bing!

"Bing, bing, bing!

Tiddle, bing, bing!

"Biddle, bing, bing," you know?

And I'd be going,

"Boom, boom, bang, bang, boom,"

because somebody had to!

..People often change

But when I look in your eyes

You could learn a lot from

a life like mine

The secret to me

It ain't flown like a flag

I wear it behind this

bloody little badge

What says...

Bell boy...

He was at the top of his game

in '73, '73-'74,

absolute top of his game.

He was magnificent,

and funny as hell.

You know, I tell the funny

stories about him showing up

and saying, "Come outside

and look at my new car!"

We'd go out

and there'd be a Rolls-Royce.

We'd say, "That's fabulous,

Keith, great."

Then two hours later, we'd have

somebody from Jack Barclay's...

"Where do I send the invoice

for Keith Moon's new car?

"He said we've got to send it to

the Who group. Is it the Who group?"

I said, "No, you send it

to Keith Moon."

"No, no, no. We have to send it

to the Who group."

"No, we're not f***ing

paying for it, OK?

"This is his car,

let him pay for it."

"No, no, you don't understand..."

"No, you don't f***ing understand.

We're not paying for his car."

Ah! That's better!

Phil, what-what-what-what-what...

'I think today you'd say

he had ADHD

'and he needed some Ritalin,

or something.'

But taking cocaine and mandrix

and brandy was exacerbating it.

It was always a mixture with Keith.

You know, fun one minute

and a bit frightening the next.

Never felt afraid OF him,

but frightened for him

and people around him.

And he wasn't at his best

as a human being at that time.

I don't think any of us were,

really.

I shouldn't really

single him out.

There's a credit on the inside

of the sleeve which says,

"Quadrophenia in its entirety

by Pete Townshend."

Townshend writes, records the

entire album himself in demo form

and then, when he brought it

to the Who, they did it again.

Quadrophenia was definitely

like a Pete Townshend solo project.

It was all Townshend

from start to finish, his own...

They probably knew

nothing about it till he came

and said, "Here it is."

So, you could see how Roger

and maybe the others would feel

a little bit resentful,

because it could be construed

as being used like

session musicians, you know.

I hear it said that Pete produced

the album, which in a sense he did.

But the one thing he never,

ever produced was the vocals.

He's never there when I record

my vocals, ever. I won't have that.

Roger was always tough,

assertive, masculine.

So there was always that sense that

you had to be cheerful what you

said around him, you really did.

Pete's a very

complicated character,

incredibly complicated, as you

can see by the songs he writes.

They had an addiction to friction.

It's almost like

they're two jigsaw pieces,

and when you bring them together

they fit together.

It's an absolute love-hate...

Not hate, but it's

a love-anger relationship.

And I think

if you take away the love-anger,

you take away the creative source.

You take away the driving dynamic.

So he steals a boat, in the story,

and goes out to sea

and almost drowns.

It's clearly written as,

is this going to be what happens

to this boy whose life's

kind of fallen apart?

Who's twice schizophrenic,

pilled out, lost, he's got nothing,

doesn't have a girl,

doesn't have a bike,

doesn't have anything.

And that's kind of

what we're shooting.

And then he's now really adrift.

And then this,

which I just kind of love.

Love Reign O'er Me.

Only love...

What's interesting about...

the opening here is

that what you hear from Roger

is incredible tenderness.

You don't hear the

heartfelt bawling,

screaming bear

that you hear later on.

Only love

Can make it rain

The way the beach

Is kissed by the sea

Only love

Can make it rain

Like the set of lovers

Laying in the fields...

Then you get

to this impassioned scream.

..Love!

Reign o'er me...

If nothing else, Love Reign O'er Me

shows that Jimmy's a man.

..Love...

A boy wants to be noticed at a club,

wants a jacket.

Here, at the end,

Jimmy is finally becoming a man

and asking for things

that men want.

..Reign o'er me

Only love

Can bring the rain...

Jimmy is the hero, at last.

It's not about the Who,

it's not about Roger,

it's not about Pete,

not about John, not about the mods,

it's not about Ace Face,

not about drugs,

or any of that stuff.

It's just about Jimmy and what it is

that he's finally got to,

is that he realises that he's been

looking outside himself,

and what he has to do now is to

try to ask the question internally,

and that what this song does.

..Love!

Reign o'er me

Reign o'er me, reign o'er me

Love!

Reign o'er me

Reign o'er me, reign o'er me...

The poignancy for me was that,

as a composer, working with the Who

was so great because they used to

give me this unbelievable licence.

They didn't share my spiritual

beliefs - that's fine...

they didn't share my spiritual

beliefs but they allowed me

to have them, and to express them

through my work.

And when it came to a song like

Love Reign O'er Me,

which is a spiritual

prayer to nothing and everything,

Roger gave it his bollocks.

This is Roger coming in

in a second.

'I did it as a scream

from the street.'

I wanted it to be like the ultimate

anger, the ultimate passion,

the ultimate orgasm, you know.

'I wanted it to be like every

emotion we've ever had.'

..Lo-o-o-ove!

Reign o'er me

Reign over me, over me, over me

Whoa! Love!

Because then it's

unconditional to the track.

And love should be always

unconditional.

O-o-o'er me...

You get this sense of Roger

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