I’m 25, turning 26 in about 6 months. Why am I having thoughts on dreading old age?
My first reaction was indignation: Et tu, Who? But that was an old reflex, grown feeble with the passing years. It’s been a while since I could yell “Sellout” with any real conviction. Anyway, The Who’s days of overt rebellion are long gone. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey were Kennedy Center honorees last month, standing alongside Barbra Streisand, George Jones, and George W. Bush, among others.
My second reaction was a suspicion that maybe Townshend hasn’t completely lost his subversive touch after all. Maybe he’s just redirected it inward. “Hope I die before I get old” a line included in the sixty-second version has a certain ironic, shamefaced piquancy now that the spokesmusicians for the sixties are in their sixties. That hope for a quick, Hendrix-like demise has been dashed, along with The Who’s retirement portfolio, if theirs is like everybody else’s. But renting out an antique anthem of rebellion isn’t just a way to ensure that the money will be there to pay for an assisted living facility, it’s also a subtly devastating comment on where and how our g-g-generation ended up. Good one, Pete
Who Knew?: Hendrik Hertzberg: Online Only: The New Yorker.