Quadrophenia... the ultimate Who album. The album in which all that has gone before comes together into one perfect package. The definitive Rock album, although perhaps not the definitive Who albumyet still the most "Who" of any Who album. QUAD was the only Pete Townshend production for his band, which may be the reason for this. Or perhaps it was one of those elusive moments in Art when many elements come together and a higher level is achieved. In any case, it might be questioned but never dismissed that the essence of Rock music was better defined than within these 82 minutes. Unlike Townshendís earlier work, TOMMY (a fantasy which reflected the yearning for but ultimate rejection of spiritual enlightenment by the populous), QUAD is almost stark in its realism. In a brilliant display of songwriting prowess, both the story and the music of QUAD are multi-leveled and complex. On the surface it is merely the story of James Michael Cooper, Mod. With him comes his psychological problem, that being a four way split personality (designed to reflect the four members of The Who, mislabeled Quadrophenia in reference to Schizophrenia). Jimmy is supposed to be four people: a tough guy, a romantic, a lunatic, and a hypocrite. Sometimes one could just as easily be another, and like real life there's no real pattern, so in the end it seems a writing tool never completely utilized by Townshend.

Jimmy is a member of the Mod scene, and (like most teenagers) he's desperately attempting to fit in. And failing, despite being an advocate and devoted follower of Mod-consciousness. That's on the surface. Embedded within this story, one can find the adolescent angst common to us all. As usual, Townshend was speaking for his generation. Jimmy is a typical frustrated teenager (if such a being can be said to exist), bound to find THE ANSWERS yet unable to see how. Envying the guys who seem to have figured it out, not realizing they are no wiser than he. Desiring the girls he cannot approach, not yet aware their needs are different yet no less compelling than his own. Wanting to be accepted as an adult, while in the core of his being he knows that he isn't really prepared. QUAD captures this dilemma so perfectly that it could serve as a primer to help any teen get through adolescence.

Let's take the story itself step by step. "The story is set on a rock in the middle of a stormy sea." So Townshend said at Largo, Maryland (or was it Philadelphia?) for the opening of this story. Jimmy is sitting on this rock in the bay, with rain pouring on him, reflecting on his woes to date. The album opens with the crashing of waves against the rock, in the theme of Helpless Dancer. "Is it me, for a moment?" "Bell boy" "Love reign o'er me." Jimmy, feeling tortured by it all, screams in agony: "Can you see the real me, can ya? Can YA?" The Real Me kicks in as Jim angrily recounts his attempts to be understood. He recalls the sessions with his psychiatrist, where Jimmy doesn't feel he's getting through. The psychiatrist: "never betrays what he thinks." Frustrated, he turns to his mother, but unfortunately she can only offer: "I know how it feels, son/Cause it runs in the family." No help there. With wonderful imagery, the song shows how the frustration takes Jimmy's consciousness to a higher level (as on an acid trip): "The cracks between the paving stones/Like rivers of flowing veins." Jim notes that even those in the neighborhood he knows are really strangers to him "peeping behind from every windowpane." He has lost his girl and cannot figure out why. His life is turning to shit, and no one can understand him. He fells alienated and alone.

So Jimmy turns at last to a holy man, although so bitter now that he's "full of lies and hate." The preacher, used to less volatile situations, is frightened but doesn't really understand. So he does his best to show Jim the path as he sees it, not able to grasp the strength of the forces at work within Jimmyís skull. It's not enough for Jim, and he rejects it ending with the same frustrations, intensified. The four personalities then grip him, one by one. Musically, this is shown by each theme in the song Quadrophenia. They rage through him, and in the end Jimmy is left weakened and reflective.

The boy feels he needs a direction. Jim thinks that being a Mod can save him; can solve his problems. Even in a less spiritual work, Townshend cannot escape the humanís basic drive for spirituality. Mod is Jimmyís religion, his buffer from the harsh reality of a life he doesnít quite understand. He tires to rationalize his behavior and lifestyle to himself, alternately justifying the lifestyle ("Why should I care/If I have to cut my hair/I've got to move with the fashion/Or be outcast.") and declaring his belief in the truth of it ("I'm out on the street again/And I'm leaping along/Dressed right/For a beach fight") but is still honest enough to feel itís not doing what he needs it to ("but I just can't explain/Why that uncertain feeling/Is still here in my brain"). Here we also see how rejected and separated he feels even form his Mod pals ("Why do I have to be the same old row again and again/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"). Even Modism isn't perfect, but it's all he's got. His goal becomes being the perfect Mod. This will be his salvation.

So, in search of the relief he so desperately needs, he goes to see a top Mod band at a live show (The Who, of course). It's not long before he realizes they are no more than a reflection of their audience ("You declared you were three inches taller/You only became what we made you"). The band admits to this ("No surprise/I told lies/ I'm the punk in the gutter") and tries to convey a feeling of vision ("And yet I've lived your future out/By pounding stages like a clown"). But Jimmy needs real heroes; someone he can look up to. Someone who has successfully dealt with the problems he faces. And so this is just another letdown for him. He returns home to find himself thrown out, because his mother had found drugs (leapers) in his room.

Alone, he still finds the strength within himself and the idea of Mod all he has "discovered" is that these particular people aren't up to his standard. So while he admits that he's got problems ("I'm a loser/No chance to win"), he also has what it takes to overcome them ("You'll all see/I'm the one"). Jimmy gets a job as a dustman. High on self-declarations, he maintains "Things are changing/I'm not going to sit and weep again" and "Just like a child/I've been seeing only dreams/I'm all mixed up but I know I'm right" After two days of this dirty and nonfulfilling work, Jim quits his job. His answer lies elsewhere.

Again thrown into depression, he rages against life ("And when your soul tells you to hide/Your very right to die's denied/And when a man is trying to change/It only causes further pain"). Like any other teen, Jimmy is looking for the fairness in life, and not finding any ("And you get beaten up by blacks/Who though they work still got the sack..."). In the end, he can find only one solution: giving up ("You realize that all along/Something in us is going wrong/You stop dancing."). And that's no solution at all. Jim begins to feel once more that the problem lies within him ("I try to number those who love me/And find exactly what the problem is/Is it in my head/Or in my heart"). The evidence seems to point in that direction ("Statements to a stranger/Just asking for directions/Turns from being help/To being questions"); he can't interact with anyone around him. It must be his fault.

Searching for what seems an impossible solution, Jimmy rides out in his GS scooter. He is still declaring his Modism ("My jacket's gonna be cut slim and checked/Maybe a touch of seersucker with an open neck"), striving to be a perfect Mod. Then Jimmy sees the girl he loves with his best friend, which seems to be the final straw, and is upset enough to crash the bike. He can only reject everything ("I've had enough of living"), because it's all been taken away form him anyway. Even the Modism he knows appears corrupt ("I've had enough of dancehalls/I've had enough of pills/I've finished with the fashion/And acting like I'm tough/I've bored with hate and passion/I've had enough of trying to love").

Jim has lost everything he loved. This is the low point in his life. And yet, though depressed and frustrated, he still clings to the belief that Mod can save him. It's all he has left and he must find an uncorrupted group of true believers, so he will at last find the people with which to fit in. Other, perfect Modsso he gets pilled up and takes the train to Brighton, where he remembers everything as being perfectly Mod.

The leapers take him into a surreal mental state, and the whole journey is one long observational trip (ìGirls of fifteen/Sexually knowing/The ushers are sniffing/Eau-de-cologning/The seats are seductive/Celibate sitting/Pretty girls digging/Prettier women"). There is no action, just images filtered through a pill-induced haze ("Magically bored/On a quiet street corner/Free frustration/in our minds and our toes/Quiet storm water/My generation/Uppers and downers/Either way blood flows").

Upon arriving, he finds the seaside rather less than perfectly Mod this time. There are no other Mods around, and here Jim is just as lonely as at home. So he goes down to the beach (Here by the sea and sand/Nothing ever goes as planned) He recalls the "good old days" when things were the way they should be ("I am the face/She has to know me/I'm dressed up better than anyone one within a mile"), moans about his situation ("So how come the other tickets look much better/Without a penny to spend/They dress to the letter"), and thinks evil thoughts about his former girlfriend and girls in general ("How come the girls come on oh so cool/And when you meet them/Every one's a fool"). (Note: At this point, the story becomes a bit disjointed. The proper sequence, as the photos show in the booklet, has Jimmy seeing the Bell Boy and then stealing the boat. Song-wise, it's the other way aroundwhich makes no sense; how could Jim meet the Bell Boy after getting stuck on the rock? So I'm going to report it in the correct sequence, or at least the sequence I see as correct.)

Then, for the final time, Jimmy's heroes are dashed to pieces. The "Ace Face" Mod he remembers from his last visit is now seen as a lowly Bell Boy. Instead of the swaggering Mod leader ("Ain't you the guy that used to set the paces/Riding up ion front of a hundred faces"), we have a bowing-and-scraping fellow, trying to justify it all ("I've got a good job/And I'm newly born/You should see me dressed up/In my uniform) to his former admirer. But as always, reality sets in (ìBell boy!/Gotta get running now/Keep me lip buttoned down/Carry this baggage out/Always running at someoneís heel). Jim has now, truly, had enough. Everything he believed in, all of the people he has looked to for leadership or help, has let him down. Even Modism has let him down. It was a pale mockery of what he wanted, or needed, (really what he thought it was) and was never any solutions there.

Nothing there to save him which wasn't found within himself. He gets a bottle of Gin and begins to rage ("Laugh and say I'm green/I've seen things you've never seen/I'll take on anyone/Ain't scared of a bloody nose/Drink till I drop down"). Every weakness he sees (and hates) in himself, he now denies. Every cruel and ugly behavior he can think of, all of the things he wants to do but cannot, he claims as his own ("You say she's a virgin/Well I'm gonna be the first in/Her fella's gonna kill me/Oh, fucking will he"). He does, at least, realize that he has unleashed the beast within himself ("He only comes out when I drink my gin"), but this is a time for the beast because there's nothing left for any other in the life he has rejected. Coupled with this are flashes of rationality ("Is it me, for a moment"), where Jimmy actually wonders what indeed he really is. Who is the real Jim? Is it this me, for a momentor is it that me? Or are any of the four James Michael Cooper the real me?

This is the crisis building to the climax; he's no longer able to reconcile the four people that he is. As it all becomes too much for his mind to deal with, he is coming closer to a solution. Once again, aggravation (not to mention the gin & pills) takes his mind to a higher level ("The stars are falling/The heat is rising/The past is calling"). All part of the rational Jim trying to figure out what's going on.

Disgusted, angry, and still in a higher state of consciousness he steals a boat and heads for a lonely rock in the bay ("I'm flowing under bridges/And flying through the sky/I'm traveling down cold metal/Just a tear in a baby's eye/Let me flow into the ocean/Let me get back to the sea/Let me be stormy, let me be cold/Let the tide in and set me free"). Here, perhaps, he can figure it all out and find and answer. The rage within him has cooled, and now he is a bit more reflective ("I'm remembering distant memories/Recalling other names/Rippling over crayons/And boiling in the train"). And, upon climbing up on the rock, the boat drifts away, and he's stuck out there, in the rainwhich is where the story began. His reflection is over. The four facets of his personality visualize themselves before him in the falling water. He sees them swirling about him, coming slowly closer and closer tighter, until at last they overlapand coalesce into one.

This is the moment of realization for Jimmy. It all becomes clear, all of the problems and also a possible way of solutionfor the only solution for any problem must come from within. No one can really solve anything for him. He must meet the challenges of life one by one and deal with them himself. And more than anything else, trust in himself. Sure, he still faces all of the problems he did only moments ago. But now he knows he can deal with them. They aren't as crushing as they seemed, insurmountable and impossible. Overjoyed, freed, and feeling very spiritual, Jimmy embraces the rain (rather than cursing it) and allows the water to run over himwashing away his pain and filling his soul. Instead of rejecting love, he must draw it to him ("Only love can bring the rain/That falls like tears from on high") and let it cleanse him. Only through the pain can come joy; only through the pain can on recognize happiness. And in the end, only love matters (Love, reign o'er me"). Jim realizes that love, however fleeting and temporarily it may be, is goal worth seeking nonetheless. And that without it, life is empty and dry ("On the dry and dusty road/The nights we spent apart, alone/I need to get back home/To cool, cool rain").

This ending is typically Townshend. Rarely does he really end a story, because in real life there is no endingjust moving on to the next situation. The triumph here for Jimmy is that he has climbed a level in his development. He's on his way up. True, he may fall back down againbut at least he has learned how to climb and which direction to go.

Also, notice that water plays a big part in the spiritual realizationjust as in many Townshend songs, like The Sea Refuses No River and The Ferryman (which was based on the Buddhist tale Siddhartha). This is a common image for many writers aspiring to spirituality in their works, and Townshend uses it well.

I have made the case QUAD is less spiritual and more realistic than other Townshend works, but thereís no denying the parallels of coming to the Universal Mind and Jimmyís embrace of the solution. I still read much of the story as more self-affirming than spiritual, but songs like Drowned and Love Reign Oíer Me (for two) are quite spiritual in essence.

There are flaws in QUAD; not only is the story out or sequence but Jimmy's behavior does not really indicate four separate personalities. Townshend, in wanting to create a definitive Who album, stretched to the point of attempting to reflect the four members of The Who. When in fact the story works just as well without this element. The movie version ignores it completely. And it's just as well; it complicates the story with nothing gained. To reach "everyman,î as is clearly Townshend's goal, the hero should be an "everyman" after all. Too, the four facets of Jimmy's behavior are common enough to be found in any adolescent. We are, all of us, multi-faceted individuals to begin with.

The story is set in a 1964-5 London/Brighton, but again this isn't extremely important. Mod as a cult (in this story) is analogous to any group (or religion), even a small group of friends. So again, QUAD is a universal tale. Since the vast majority of people (at least in the Western cultures) go through a traumatic adolescence, it is an extremely universal tale.

Rock Music itself is a reflection of youth and rebelliousness, and going through adolescence is the most traumatic part of our youthand this makes QUAD the definitive Rock album. At least, the most definitive so far...

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