Sure, recent posts around here have been a bit abbreviated and hastily-written, but dammit, I haven't resorted to a clip job for, gosh, days. So I'm overdue, don't you think?
Here's The Who in '66 (NOT '67, no matter what the graphic on the video frame below claims), from the brief period when they (like The Kinks) could make a legit claim as being the greatest band in the world. Of course, that was the year The Beatles released Revolver, so it wasn't a claim they could make for very long, but still, I'm A Boy, with its furious instrumentation, instantly memorable melody and lyrics that play like a depraved version of one of A.A. Milne's odes to childhood, is a perfect pop song.
Incidentally, the original UK 45 of I'm A Boy had a song called In The City as its flip side, and that title, of course, would be picked up by Paul Weller a decade later when he began his run of churning out classic after classic for The Jam, a band that, unlike The Who, broke up when the time was right. Weller also managed another trick Pete Townshend has never pulled off--he's still a fantastic songwriter decades after the height of his career. But here he is back at the beginning, with In The City.
