...
Πέρα από το self-imposed γενικά (όπου συμφωνώ με το
αυτοεπιβαλλόμενο), για το Tommy συγκεκριμένα εξακολουθώ να προτιμώ την
εκούσια τυφλότητα. Διότι, στο κάτω κάτω, για τον Τόμι δεν ήταν self-imposed αλλά έξωθεν επιβληθείσα:
1921 (
Tommy) - The Who
Lover:
Got a feeling '21
Is going to be a good year,
Especially if you and me
See it in together.
Father:
So you think '21
Is going to be a good year?
It could be good for me and her,
But you and her - no, never!
I had no reason to be over optimistic,
But somehow, when you smiled
I could brave bad weather...
Mother:
What about the boy?
What about the boy?
What about the boy?
He saw it all!
Mother & Father
(Tommy):
You didn't hear it.
(I heard it)
You didn't see it.
(I saw it)
You won't say nothing to no one
(I won't say nothing to no one)
Never in your life.
(never in my life)
You never heard it.
(I heard it)
Oh, how silly it all seems
Without any proof.
(How silly it all seems without any proof)
You didn't hear it.
(I heard it)
You didn't see it.
(I saw it)
You never heard it - not a word of it!
(I heard it - every word of it)
You won't say nothing to no one,
(I won't say nothing to no one)
Never tell a soul
What you know is the truth.
(Never tell a soul
What I know is the truth)
Father:
Got a feeling '21
Is going to be a good year,
Especially if you and me
See it in together.
Got a feeling '21
Is going to be a good year,
Especially if you and me
See it in together.
I had no reason to be over-optimistic,
But somehow, when you smiled, I could brave bad weather...
Mother:
What about the boy...?
Sensation - The Story of the Who's Tommy
12':29"
Richard Barnes (Townshend's biographer): This is 1918. Captain Walker is missing, believed to be missing with a number of men. Then Mrs. Walker has a child, a son.
Pete Townshend: "The war is still on, you know, it's about to end. A mother has borne a child. She doesn't know if it will have a father. She's taken a lover. A Boy represents The Who. I had to create this viable boy that my audience, Who fans, could occupy, get inside him, and then they become the hero."
Richard Barnes: Then Captain Walker comes back. Now the first song is very vague, you don't really know what's happened.
Pete Townshend: "All around me, when I was a kid, there were these intrigues going on, you know, marital intrigues. My mum, she fell in love with this guy and she wanted to run away with him. And what she wanted was romance, and that was the thing that my dad couldn't give her. A smile, a loving touch, this is what life was about."
Richard Barnes: It turns out that, although you wouldn't know it from the record, that the father came back and found the mother with her lover and he killed the lover, and the boy witnessed it.
Pete Townshend: "As a child he sees this murder, as a child he sees a reflection of the murder. He doesn't actually see the murder. He doesn't see the blood. He doesn't hear the cries. He just sees this happening in this mirror."
Richard Barnes: And as a result of them saying: "You didn't see it, you never saw it, you won't tell a word about it," he has a trauma, and he withdraws himself and becomes deaf, dumb and blind.