The puzzling line is the middle one which is repeated over and over. The Who don't go in very much for this kind of crudity and there clearly ought to be an exlanation for it when it happens. A very close listening to the record reveals that the second last time the chorus says 'Dum Dum Dum Dolay' someone says in a nasal voice over the Dum Dums 'Please don't come too late.' What the Who were trying to do was to approximate a specific meaning-phrase by a seemingly meaningless sound. If all had gone well the hypnotic chants of Dum Dum Dolay should have created the feeling of expectation that the following line 'I'm gonna show you why they call me lightning' depends on. In this case it probably didn't work.

Nevertheless the effort to understand this aspect of the Who was not wasted. Such close attention to examples of this kind in their songs is not mere critical pedantry or an attitude of more-scrupulous-than-thou but dealing as it does with the core of the Who's enterprise it is as such worthy of extensive examination.

Daltrey talked of how the operas work, "We sometimes have different instruments for different people. For example we may use a flute to represent a mother and a reverberating chamber for the father." Townshend--"We are not rigid musicians. When we go to do an opera we have some idea of what the story will be but we don't restrict ourselves. We let our mood in the studio affect the way we play and therefore it affects the way the story line unfolds." Townshend has outlined a two hour rock opera and the group is eager to get back to England so they can start recording it. When asked about it they would all say only, "Its going to be very good." And judging from 'Rael' the one perfectly complete opera they have recorded so far one believes.

'Rael' is on the album titled 'The Who Sell Out' (a masterpiece of a record). The story of 'Rael' is one of Townshend's most resonant and complex--the archetype of a form that Bob Dylan seems to have taken up now in 'John Wesley'. The interest in the Who's production, however, lies as much in the realization through music of the action as in the actual elements of the story. The tale is of a rich man who arrives with his yacht on a distant evil island and decides to stay there for a year to see how he fares. He instructs the captain of the boat to come back in a year to the same spot and look for a signal from him. Should it be a yellow flag flying the message is that he cannot stand it any longer and must leave, if a red flag, "Brazen blown against the blue" he will stay on Rael and make it his home.

The captain and crew, however, are terrified of the place and leave in haste. Townshend and company recreate the journey home in exquisite detail, the swish of the sails, the churning of the sea past the boat, the receding fear and expectant joy as the motorboat takes them ashore, where they vow not to go back ever dismissing their master as 'crazy anyway'. The last verse of the song is a repetition of the instructions,

If a yellow flag is fluttering

Simply held against the morn

Then you'll know my courage is ended

And you'll send our boat ashore.

only this time it is played to chill the listener with the dread of a man waiting for saviors who will never come, to the backdrop of the crashing surf against the shore.

This mere outline is not enough and the song has to be listened to for the total experience, full of dark and slippery suggestion, to understand the Who's near-total mastery of this medium they have created for themselves.

The Who in performance. Entwistle grim and impassive. Moon, mouth open looking happily about. Townshend concentrates hard but is not afraid to jerk and shudder with his arms and legs when he feels the will of the music. Daltrey convulsing. Townshend splits his guitar with one axe blow. Moon when drunk, as tonight personally supervises the destruction of his drums. Why do they do it?

Q. Do you not worry that people may think you breaking instruments is just a gimmick? Daltrey replies, "No, I'm not worried if they think that. It is a gimmick." Townshend--"I get frustrated. I don't have as much talent as Clapton or Hendrix but I can conceive of things that I can't play that they could play but would never be able to think of. So I break my guitar." There is more to their destruction than even this. Sit through one of these acts and see.

Townshend is wonderful to talk to. A gentle man of long slim build he talks effortlessly and meaningfully. Q. How do you account for the fact that pop music is so fine and yet appeals to such a large audience. Townshend--" Well its because pop music can take many developments, lyricism, poetry, aggression, and it can be appreciated at many levels. Our music is pop music only in the sense of Pop Art."

Wonderfully accurate statement. The Who are Pop in Warhol's sense, they are Art in anyone's sense, and I've always thought Warhol and Pop Art were the greatest and so I must think the Who are the greatest mustn't I?