I spit out like a sewer hole, yet still receive Your kiss

If you keep up with me on Facebook you know that my 11-year-old son and I are huuuuuuuge fans of The Who. In fact, Bill recently drew this awesome pic of himself as an homage to the cover of the Who by Numbers album. Anyway, when we drive around town, just the two of us, we play every Who album we own on a systematic rotation for our in-car listening pleasure. 

And as I remarked earlier, hearing the songs repeatedly causes me to give them more than the passing thought I usually give to classic rock songs – the arrangements, the words and their possible meanings... these songs I've heard a thousand or more times... I may already even THINK I know what they mean, but... There's always some new flower of knowing that might bloom in this loamy brain of mine.

For instance, Pete’s hard rock rant, Who Are You... I’ve heard this song a GAZILLION times…  but I JUST realized that it’s a song that ANSWERS ITS OWN QUESTION!! Go ahead, click here and listen to it again… and listen to the WHOLE THING. In the first two verses, you’ll hear Roger Daltrey pretty much spitting out this tale of a night in the life of an angry, lost man….

I woke up in a Soho doorway

A policeman knew my name

He said "You can go sleep at home tonight

If you can get up and walk away"

I staggered back to the underground

And the breeze blew back my hair

I remember throwin' punches around

And preachin' from my chair

followed by the completely singable chorus which asks the song’s primary question:

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

'Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

Then our angry, lost man goes home and takes a moment to reflect…

I took the tube back out of town

Back to the Rollin' Pin

I felt a little like a dying clown

With a streak of Rin Tin Tin

I stretched back and I hiccupped

And looked back on my busy day

Eleven hours in the Tin Pan

God, there's got to be another way

and asks himself again: 

Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

'Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)

First of all, what a great description of a drunken, raging night! I should know – I’ve had one or two…(not lately of course!) I mean, can’t you just see lanky late-seventies Pete going through this ordeal in lurid, dimly-lit London locales. (SO MUCH ALLITERATION!!!) And knowing that these lines refer to a specific night in Pete Townsend’s life makes me feel like I have important esoteric knowledge. 

There’s a long blow-by-blow recount in Dave Marsh’s book, Before I Get Old; I’ll try to condense it here: So it’s the late seventies and punk rock is raging against the bloated excess of mainstream rock music machine and Pete and the boys are feeling the burn of it…  even though The Who may actually have invented punk rock with all their rebellion and instrument smashing, and telling the whole of the older generation to “f-f-f-fade away,” they took punk rock’s raging personally. 

Anyhoo, one night after a long day of business meetings – one of which involved the transfer of a sizable check, Pete goes into a pub and is none too sober when he spots a couple of actual Sex Pistols. He then rants and raves at them about the state of rock and roll – the stuff that’s bothering him about the whole life he’s living.

Actual Sex Pistols

But these guys, they love Pete and the Who and they tell him so. But he’s not having it. He knows he embodies a lot of what they think is wrong with the music business. Then he leaves and falls asleep slumped down in a doorway until a policeman wakes him up BY NAME and sends him home to his wife (aka - The Rollin’ Pin). 

So in the these verses he’s basically questioning the his own identity: “WHO ARE YOU??” he asks himself. “Everyone thinks I’m awesome, but aren’t I just a hack? Here’s the check to prove it!” and “The policeman knows my name, but do I know my own self?”

These are the familiar verses, but it’s the third verse that has just now sunk in. I was thinking how nice it sounded. I posted the lines on Facebook, because I love using song lyrics as status updates. Makes me feel all poetic, you know – without having to actually write anything. Anyway, it goes like this:

I know there's a place you walked

Where love falls from the trees

My heart is like a broken cup

I only feel right on my knees

I spit out like a sewer hole

Yet still receive your kiss

How can I measure up to anyone now

After such a love as this?

This is so lovely I made it a meme! PLUS
the background is actually Myrtle Beach!

And this cool guy I knew in college, Artie Sparrow (That’s his real name! Isn’t it lovely?), left this comment: “Fun fact: that lyric is about Myrtle Beach.” Of course it is. At first I thought Artie was joking because… well, you know… Myrtle Beach? The Redneck Riviera? But then I remembered that there is a Meher Baba center at Myrtle Beach, and Pete Townshend loves him some Meher Baba, and his bio Who I Am explains that this refers to a visit there.*

MB is his GURU... although I’m not sure what that means. I honestly can’t say I would equate Meher Baba with the Divine – but Pete does. So… when Pete says, “There’s got to be another way,” in verse 2, and then moves on to the beautiful, meaningful ponder that is verse 3 – that what he means, it is the love of the Divine that defines us – not whether we’ve invented punk rock, whether we’re are-nows or has-beens… (Jew or Greek, man or woman, slave or free…**) Who are you? Who am I? Who is GOD? Who does God say I am? If we ask these last two questions, we will know the answers to the first two questions.

It’s just like when Pete says in the gorgeous song Bargain – “I sit lookin’ ‘round, I look at my face in the mirror.*** I know I’m worth nothing without you. And like one and one don’t make two, one and one make one. And I’m lookin’ for that free ride to me - I’m looking for You!” (creative capitalization mine!)

Dang it! Fries are delicious!

And Pete wrote this one several years before he struggled with these issues in Who Are You. Which goes to show, that we KNOW things to be true, but that doesn’t mean we don’t struggle with opposing FEELINGS. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you this. Like when you KNOW that finishing off your kid’s fries after you’ve had your own just might not be the best thing for you, but you really have to struggle with the truth of it because dang it FRIES ARE DELICIOUS!! Heck, even St. Paul struggled with the difference between knowing and feeling! Check out Romans 8:21-25!

Of course matters of identity are a bit more serious than consuming mass quantities of fries… But we see from the letters of Paul that his recipients need to be repeatedly reminded of the fundamental sweetness and glory of the gospel – that is, that God loves people so much He sent his own Son to save them.**** And that’s WHO WE ARE. People God loves and deems worth saving.

*I can talk more about this if you really want to know, but this post is already so long…!!

** Galations 3:28

***When we come to this line from Bargain in the car Bill and I both gaze wistfully into the rear view mirror. It cracks us up every time. If you want to read more of my crazy reflections about this song, you can read this post.

****John 3:16, of course!

In Which I Meander the Dotted Line

The Easy Listenin' 
Mobile...

Back when I was a kid being chauffeured around in our wood-paneled Vista Cruiser station wagon, the AM/FM radio was always tightly controlled by our parents. My dad grew up on a tobacco farm in rural Granville County, so I hazard a guess that his true preference was for country music, old-time or otherwise. However, because my mother detested country music with the kind of vehemence people normally reserve for, say, Hitler, he kept that in the closet. If we listened hard enough, though, we might catch him whistling Farther Along or You Are My Sunshine.

My dad fancied Karen Carpenter.
Apparently, so did Nat Stine's dad.

So, what was the soundtrack of our dysfunctional car rides? One of three things: WUNC, which played classical music back then, WYYD, which played muzak (elevator music, we called it), or WRAL's adult contemporary. Yes, I am deeply familiar with the soft hits of the seventies: Captain and Tennille, the Carpenters, Helen Reddy… folks like that. I think my dad had a secret crush on Karen Carpenter... and she did have a voice like butter... Of course when we were very young we thought it was fine. As I blossomed into a surly teen and found out that WQDR (album rock back then) was where it was at… well, let’s just say my preferences were slightly more metal than our parents’. Led Zeppelin. Cream. The Who. And Elton John, of course – but he was considered cool back then. 

This was more my speed.

Nevertheless, we continued to be fed a steady auditory diet of smooth melodies, maudlin lyrics and syrupy orchestrations. Ew. To my teenange ears, it was like fingernails on a chalkboard... Oh! The humiliating uncoolness of it all!!! I survived, though, and here I am today, telling you the tale.

And now we fast forward to the current day, which will take us in my usual roundabout way to what I am really going to talk about. (Picture those Family Circus cartoons where the mom tells Jeffy or PJ to walk from point A to point B, but dotted lines show how the kid’s actually path shoots off in a hundred directions – petting the dog, getting cookies from Mrs. Wilson… oh wait, wrong comic! Sure I could have just said, “let’s talk about these two songs” but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun as telling you about the cavities we got from excessive Paul Williams consumption…!)

Anyway, I remember a cool woman in my office – a stellar mother – told me that she always let her (teenage) kids pick what they would listen to in the car. So I thought, due to my previous pain, “that’s what I’M going to do.” And so I do. When Bill was too little to care, I picked the stuff – usually something I considered pretty good, but not too obnoxious. He knew Van Morrison’s Moondance album from beginning to end. Also James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James, Hank Williams Greatest Hits and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper.

Bill's Pinewood Derby homage...

But now that he's nine, he’s starting to have his own preferences and, like the aforementioned cool mom from my office, I let him pick the tunage. You know what he picks ten times out of ten? The Who. That child loves those guys. Especially Keith Moon, who, although not a great role model, could really beat the skins. Bill even put a Who logo on his Pinewood Derby car and made little Lego figures to go with it of the guys in the band. It was awesome if I do say so myself.

to these guys...

Now, as I’ve said, I’ve been listening to the Who for roughly 40 years. Album radio has ensured that I have heard Won’t Get Fooled Again and Baba O’Riley more times than I can count… so by now it kind of goes in one ear and out the other. Until Bill. Hearing these songs as my kid hears them for the first time… it’s almost like hearing them myself for the first time… again. So let’s just say that my appreciation of the Who has been reignited.

 

who actually looked like this.

Bill invariably requests Who’s Next or Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy for our rides to school and cub scouts and Target and the like, so I’ve had plenty of time to mull over the classic songs and their meanings and implications. Two songs, have especially unfolded for me in new and different ways. (And now we come down to the true raison d’etre of this post!)

"naked, stoned 
and stabbed..."

First, Bargain. It’s fairly obvious that this passionate declaration is religious. Pete Townshend is a follower of Meher Baba, who was an Eastern guru. The gist of it is that Pete would give up everything he has to find spiritual enlightment through his guru – and would consider a bargain… the best he ever had. Of course my Western, thoroughly Christian brain applied it to seeking and following Jesus Christ… it resonates with quotes from the Bible like, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” (Matthew 13:44) and “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35)

But one day, we’re driving along, Bill and me, listening to this forceful, anthemic song, and I hear Roger Daltrey sing out, “To win you, I’d stand naked, stoned and stabbed…” I realized that this song is not about ME and what I’D give up for Christ, but about JESUS Himself and what He gave up for every me on earth!!! That is to say, each one of us is so amazing to Him that He would and DID stand naked, stoned and stabbed to purchase us from our own stupidity! AND He considers it a BARGAIN!! (Can I get a "Hallelujah"?!) I much prefer this interpretation, as 1. I am lazy, and 2. Even if I were to do all the work this song implies, I couldn’t save myself.

"Can I buy your magic bus?"

Okay, moving right along. This next one is sort of a stretch, but it really works for me. Magic Bus. This joyful, rockin’ good tune – performed with all the  fervor of a charismatic worship service – is about a guy who boards a bus every day to visit his girlfriend. He values this privilege so much he wants to buy the bus for his own personal use. “I don't care how much I pay, I wanna drive my bus to my baby each day.” Which, again, expresses the sentiment that attaining the object of one's desire is worth everything one owns. (Again, Matthew 13:44)

This song can be taken straightforwardly – as in "boy do I love my girlfriend;" some imagine it as an ode to the narrator’s drug of choice. But one day recently, I heard it in my mind as an expression of intention and appreciation for contemplative prayer. As in, “every day I hop on board the contemplative prayer bus to be united with God.”

"Nooooooooooooooo..."

In this scenario, our protagonist chants “I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it…” as a sort of contemplative exercise such as those devised by St. Ignatius of Loyola. Then the guy in the background goes, “You CAN’T have it!” This would be Satan, naturally. Or “the enemy,” “the evil one,” Mr. Scratch, Voldemort, Sauron...* That a-hole tries to tell us we can’t buy the Magic Bus, (ie. pray worth crap and why would God want you anyway) and therefore, getting to our “bay-bay” (ie. achieving union with God) is either impossible, or much too costly. Of course we’ve already established that we are willing to spend whatever it takes to get there… and fortunately for us, as mentioned above, it is our “bay-bay” who has paid the enormous cost and made the amazing journey to reach US. Yes, please!

How ‘bout another “Hallelujah!” and an "Amen!"





*Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, Mr. Scratch, Louis Cypher in Angel Heart, Daryl Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick, John Milton in The Devil's Advocate, Duchess the cat in Babe, Denis Leary as Slater in Secret Lives of Dentists...