behind blue eyes

In an after work beer infused conversation, a couple of pals talk about the Who. I am not the biggest Who fan and said so. Long ago a friend said to me, you know, you either like the Who or Led Zeppelin, but not both. I so lean toward Led Zeppelin, but there are a few moments when what I wanted, what I needed, was the Who.

As a kid, I had older neighbor girls who turned me on to rock music at a young age. They started me with the Beatles, and then on to the Stones and Zeppelin. I had a subscription to Rolling Stone magazine when I was like ... oh, 13. When I wrote for my junior high school newspaper, I insisted on writing the rock column ... we had one issue, and I wrote about the Beatles.

In 1975, Tommy, the movie based on the Who's rock opera, was released. I was 13. It was the summer before my eighth grade year in school. There was nothing that I wanted more than to see that movie. I had to see it. And I nagged, and nagged, and nagged my mother... oh, you have to take me to the show to see this movie or else I will melt into a puddle right here in front of you. In 1975 going to the movies was a big deal. I may have seen five others before then. She finally gave in and took my brother, who was two years older, and I to the show. She dropped us off and said that she would be back to pick us up in a couple of hours. I was so excited! I was going to see a real rock opera! So on this hot summer day, my brother and I walked into an air conditioned theater, and I settled in to be rocked.

You know how it is when you really look forward to seeing a performance, whether film, concert, game, and you have to be like square in front of it. Feet firmly planted and hands tight on the arm rest. Trance-like I waited for the movie to begin, and as it began it was almost as if I wasn't there at all. I was in a place of pure exaltation, and then .... the power went out! And it didn't come back on! So we went to a pay phone and called mom to come get us. I was a sad kitten.

So I thought of this when we were talking belly up to the bar. And like any other work conversation, it drifted and I didn't think of it. Until this morning when I saw a text from the night before from a friend who had joined us later and had missed the whole Who conversation, he wrote, 'Behind Blue Eyes, The Who, 1971.' He had been telling me that he was a sad man. Of course, my first reaction was to respond to the connection. He had no idea that we were in Who-ville earlier, then he pulls it out as if he were there all along. The coincidence of it is enchanting. I texted back with that wonderment, and now I consider someone who is in a place where a song reads their life. That's usually a heady place. And I feel bad that my first thought was ... connection, not his lyriced life.

No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies

But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free

No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you

No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through

But my dreams
They aren't as empty
as my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free

When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool

If I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
If I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat

No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

I read these lyrics and I can see some of him in the song. He is sad. His dreams don't seem to be empty. But he is not a bad man. I wonder if we don't fit into a song for but a few words, a line or two, and then we just of gloss over the rest since some of it is so dead on. How many times have I made up the lyrics of a song? I think that I know what is being sung, and come to discover that I got it all wrong. Maybe that's it, maybe he got it wrong. Ah, but he isn't that sort. He's someone that knows all of the words to all of the songs. He knows all of the words that are in his head. I wonder if he knew before this night that this song was his? Or was it that it hung overhead from what was the ghost of what had already been said.

I wish that I knew a song that was for that.