“People try to put us down just because we get around.
Things they do look awful cold. I hope I die before I get old.
Talkin’ ’bout my generation.”
— Pete Townshend, 1965
I’m dating myself with this quotation, but you don’t need to
have been alive in ’65 to be familiar with The Who’s anthem. I’ve left out the
awful Roger Daltrey stutter that features in seven of the song’s eight lines,
but you get the drift. It’s an expression of teen alienation; a de rigueur dissing of the previous
generation.
“Why don’t you all f-fade away?” Townshend asked the parents
of his audience and of course, eventually, they did.