No. 955 – Guitar and Pen

Performer: The Who

Songwriter: Pete Townshend

Original Release: Who’s Next

Year: 1978

Definitive Version: None

My sister, Jin, and I have very different music philosophies if not tastes. She is far more adventurous and open-minded than I am. Consequently, she’s way more hip than I’ll ever be.

No better example of that is the divergent paths we took after discovering The Who at about the same time in the fall of 1979. I went from The Who to Jimi Hendrix to Led Zeppelin to Yes. She went to Cheap Trick, Rush and AC/DC—all up-to-the-minute current bands at the time. My bands, not so much. Heck, even our first Who albums told the tale: I bought The Kids Are Alright soundtrack—essentially a live greatest hits collection; she bought Who Are You—their latest album.

So I can’t hear this song and not think of Jin, and how she’d play something for me that she had found and thought I would like—only to have me typically dismiss it out of the gate. But few are the times that I didn’t eventually come around. Little sisters can be a pain, but sometimes they are smarter than you are and do, in fact, know best.

OK, in my sister’s case, it’s more than “sometimes.”