Punk Rock Colleague & Historian and Professional Consultant
Hudley Flipside
Holly and Sony 1975
“We’re not gonna take it
We’re not gonna take it
We’re not gonna take it
We’re not gonna take it.”
Two rock operas came to mind today… both flashed through my mind as the songs also dashed by.
Tommy is a 1975 British psychedelic musical fantasy drama film written and directed by Ken Russell and based on The Who’s 1969 rock opera album Tommy and Quadrophenia is the sixth studio album by the English rock band the Who, released as a double album on 26 October 1973. Quadrophenia is a 1979 British drama film, based on the Who’s 1973 rock opera of the same name. It was directed by Franc Roddam in his feature directing debut.
Why I thought, why is my psyche pushing these memories up? It was 1969 and 1975, both interesting years. I was 12 and 17. Turning points in my life for a generation of us. Generation Jones is an awkward generation. But what about turning sixty-seven this May? Why am I so often having these rock opera ideals ascending from my being? More than 50 years ago.
The uncertainties of growing up? About to turn thirteen and about to turn eighteen?
Between thirteen and eighteen I left nature and my wild mustang for boys. I started working at miscellaneous jobs around town. Mostly still in a state of essential existential shyness of many inward thought forms.
You know, at certain times in life you can go through a bullet. So much happens. From seventeen to nineteen I rode a fast train. At the end of the train, I did find myself awake and aware.
“Why do I have to move with a crowd
Of kids that hardly notice I’m around?
I work myself to death just to fit in.”
It is a youthful call to the senior I have become. A bubbling up of possibilities and fast times again. Rebellious time again. Of speaking up and out and not giving up. OK with never fitting in the crowd when it comes to my Individuation.
