I have given you a number of long entries lately, so I will try to keep this one short and sweet.The Who will play at halftime of the Super Bowl on Sunday. Of course, they’ve been around for a while. Pete Townshend turns sixty-five this year. Roger Daltrey will turn sixty-six in a few weeks. John Entwistle and Keith Moon are both dead, so I guess they won’t be there. But I have to hand it to them. These old men will be rockin’ up there on the stage, energetically, and I presume without the aid of canes, walkers, or surgically replaced hips or knees.
Whenever I see The Who performing these days, as old men, I am reminded of their 1965 hit “My Generation.” Here are some of the lyrics:
“People try to put us down, just because we get around,
The things they do look awful cold, I hope I die before I get old.”
and . . .
“Why don’t you all just fade away? Don’t try to dig what we all say.”
There were other such sentiments floating around at the time. Take, for example, the Rolling Stones’ 1966 hit “Mother’s Little Helper,” where Mick Jagger constantly repeats the line, “What a drag it is getting old.” Or perhaps the 1960s catch-phrase “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.”
So when I hear these songs or see these performers these days, I wonder what they think now . . . now that they themselves are old. Have they mellowed a bit? Have they shed any of their former contempt for the generation that preceded them? (You know, the generation that defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito.) Are they willing to accept that some from the younger generation(s) might have the same disdain for them that they had toward their parents? And, how has their generation measured up to previous generations in the annals of history (say, for example, the generation that produced George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc.)? Of course, Pete Townshend never thought he would be in this position. He was hoping that he would die before he ever got to this point of his life.
I don’t know what the answers to these questions are. But I do ponder them.
Thank you for that. Hooray for us oldsters!!
ReplyDeletePart of the answer to your question is that this generation never did stop seeing themselves as the center of the universe, even as they aged. Witness the constant adulation of the “baby boomers” over the years in the media. They simply put themselves at the head of the line in all the years since the 60’s, since they were adored by, and became the main force in, the mainline media.
Obviously, though, their generation (which is mine also) is rapidly passing into oblivion!!
dad, i agree with your analysis of the boomer generation. the word "self-absorbed" comes to mind as one generic descriptor.
ReplyDeletei would note, though, that all the data that i've seen puts the boomer generation as those born after world war 2 . . . the post-war boom of births after the soldiers came home. i have seen the dates 1946-64 thrown around, but i think 64 is a little late . . . i.e. i have never thought of my older sister as a baby boomer.
i think that you and i are "tweeners" i.e. "between" generations. you were born just before the boom, me just after. but whether or not you are a boomer by date, you and mom are definitely not boomers with regard to your general outlook on life. and for that, i am eternally grateful! :)
(comment on original post, not comments) I always took the lyrics to mean "old" as a state of mind, not a physical age. Not sure why I assumed that, but I did. That is just what the lyrics seemed to say to me. I am sure google would know.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is interesting to see these older musicians playing and singing the same lyrics. I'd be interested to see an interview with them now and see what they would say about it. A lot of them wrote these songs when they were so young.