Tommy n’ Pink

As  Who fan for 20-some years, I’ve been quite familiar with what is arguably the seminal rock opera, Tommy.  By contrast, I’ve only recently discovered Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  By radio play alone, I’ve heard and was very familiar with perhaps as much as half the The Wall’s songs.  But listening to it all the way through and reading up on it, I was surprised at the similarities in themes and even some of the plot between these two, which are among the most revered concept albums ever made.

To try to get a grip on these similarities, I did some extensive searching for summaries or synopses of the stories told by each album.  The following were, I feel, the simplest but most helpful.

TOMMY

British Army Captain Walker is reported missing in action during World War I, and is not expected ever to be seen again. Shortly after his wife, Mrs. Walker, receives this news, she gives birth to their son, Tommy.  Approximately four years later, Captain Walker returns home and discovers that his wife has found a new lover. Captain Walker confronts the two and kills the lover. Tommy witnesses this through his mirror. To cover up the crime, Tommy’s parents tell Tommy that he didn’t see it, didn’t hear it, and he will say “nothing to no one ever in [his] life”. A
traumatized Tommy becomes deaf, dumb, and blind.

Tommy’s subconscious reveals itself to him as a tall stranger dressed in silvery robes, and the vision sets him on an internal spiritual journey upon which he learns to interpret all physical sensations as music.

His thoughtless parents leave him to the care of his cousin, Kevin, who tortures him and later to the care of his uncle Ernie, an alcoholic child molester.  Uncle Ernie, like Kevin, takes abuses Tommy (in this case sexually) knowing he will not be caught.

Tommy’s brilliance at pinball is discovered, and quickly defeats the game’s tournament champion, making him an international celebrity, really like a rock mega-star.

His parents find a medical specialist to once more try to understand and cure his symptoms. After numerous tests, they are told that there is nothing medically wrong with him, and that his problems are psychosomatic. However, as they are trying to reach him, Tommy’s subconscious is also trying to reach out to them.  Tommy’s mother continues to try to reach him, and becomes frustrated that he completely ignores her while staring directly at a mirror. Out of this frustration
she smashes the mirror.  The smashing of the mirror snaps Tommy back into reality. Tommy’s cure becomes a public sensation and he attains guru-like status. Thereafter he assumes a quasi-messianic mantle and tries to lead his fans to an enlightenment similar to his own.

Tommy opens his own home to anyone willing to join him, and urges them to bring as many people with them as they can.  His home ultimately turns into a “holiday camp” run by Uncle Ernie, who is apparently motivated by greed and not spiritual enlightenment.  Tommy demands that his followers play pinball and blind, deafen and mute themselves in order to truly reach their spiritual height, but the heavy-handedness of his cult and the exploitation of its followers by his family and
associates cause his followers to revolt against him. Abandoned by his followers and worshipers, Tommy gains a new enlightenment.

Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(album)#Story_in_chronological_order

THE WALL

From the outset, Pink’s life revolves around an abyss of loss and isolation. Born to a war-ravaged nation that takes his father’s life in the name of “duty,” and an overprotective mother who lavishes equal measures of her love and phobias onto her son, Pink chooses to build a mental wall between himself and the rest of the world so that he can live in a constant, alienated equilibrium free from life’s physical and emotional troubles. Every incident that causes Pink pain is yet another brick in his ever-growing wall: a fatherless childhood, a domineering mother, a country whose king signs his father’s death certificate with a rubber stamp, the superficiality of stardom, an estranged marriage, even the very drugs he turns to in order to find release. As his wall nears completion, each brick further closing him off from the rest of the world, Pink spirals into a void of insanity, cementing in place the final brick in the wall. Yet the minute it is complete, Pink begins to realize the adverse effects of total mental isolation, helplessly watching as his fragmented psyche coalesces into the very dictatorial persona that antagonized the world during World War II, scarred his nation, killed his father, and thereby defiled his own life from birth. Culminating in a mental trial as theatrically rich as the greatest stage shows, the story ends with a message that is as enigmatic and circular as the rest of Pink’s life. Whether it is ultimately viewed as a cynical story about the futility of life, or a hopeful journey of metaphorical death and rebirth, the Wall is certainly a musical milestone worthy of the title “art.”

http://www.thewallanalysis.com/Intro.html

Is it just me, or are there some amazing similarities?  Here are those that jumped out at me.  Both Tommy and Pink lose their fathers who fight for Britain in a world war.  Tommy’s father is only presumed dead so long for his mother to take a new lover; Pink’s father is forever lost.

Most startlingly, the cruelty of parents, relatives and authority figures in general twist and warp the minds of the characters.  Tommy’s parents, indifferent and distant at best, turn him over to be tortured by a bully cousin and sick and twisted uncle.  Doctors torture him with ineffective “cures.”  Pink endures his overbearing mother and viciousness of wicked teachers.

Stardom is the temporary salvation, or at least solace, of each character.  Their celebrity, Tommy’s as a “pinball wizard” (really a rock star) and Pink’s as a rock star, bring them the fame and glory, make them little gods.  As is often the case in real life, that glory eventually becomes their emotional and psychological undoing.

While both arrive at their end point by extremely divergent paths, both cult-like figures, are taken down by their followers.  Tommy’s holiday camp attendees overthrow him.  Pink is “tried” in some fashion of a court for what in essence amount to war crimes.   Tommy is booted from his throne.  Pink’s wall is torn asunder.

At the risk of overstating the importance or depth of these works, there’s no doubt a more scholarly look at them might find more interesting and detailed similarities.  I’m neither a music nor literature expert.  My eyes are untrained to find themes, moods, tone and so on.  Nevertheless, there appear to be enough points of likeness between Tommy and The Wall to merit mention.  I’d love to read anything others might have said on the subject and welcome lots of feedback.

Finally one of the cool kids

It only took 20-some years of fighting it, but I finally became one of the cool kids.  I broke down and picked up a few Pink Floyd albums.  No, I didn’t pay for them.  I got ’em from the local library.  I’ve listened to bits of Dark Side of the Moon and I am listening to The Wall as I write.

I could never tell you why I never even gave Pink Floyd a chance.  I just didn’t.  The closest thing I had to a reason was that there were just “not my style.”  It’s not as if I’d never heard them.  They’re a staple of rock radio.  I’ve heard a few dozen songs on radio alone and probably bits and pieces of albums that friends have played.  But I never sat down and listened to a single album start to finish.  No, I didn’t even try to watch The Wall synced with The Wizard Of Oz.  Since I’ve never been a head, I suppose I never felt the need to really pay much attention.

Lately, though, I’ve felt like I’ve run out of good rock and roll.  I’m a Beatles fanatic but I’m trying not to OD on the new mono and stereo remasters, which have been in heavy rotation at home, work and in the car for 2 weeks.  I need to pick up the new Black Crowes album and that will quench my rock thirst. . . for a time.

For now, though, let’s see how I like the Floyd.

The rebirth of rock opera

You thought rock opera died with Quadrophenia or, perhaps, Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime.  You were wrong…partially at least.

For the last few months I’ve pretty much ignored the big ad on the back of my Mojo magazines for Monkey Journey to the West, the most recent multi-media project from Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewett, collaboratively known for their Gorillaz projects.

The wiki entry for the project reads (in part)

Monkey: Journey to the West is a stage adaptation of the 16th Century Chinese novel Journey to the West, by Wu Cheng’en. It was conceived and created by the Chinese actor and director Chen Shi-zheng, together with the British musician Damon Albarn and British artist Jamie Hewlett. However, the original idea came from Jean-Luc Choplin, head of the Chatelet Theatre in Paris

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Billed as a “circus opera“, the show is Hewlett and Albarn’s first major collaboration since Gorillaz. Albarn composed the musical score while Hewlett designed the visual concept, set and costumes. The adaptation for stage has been written by Shi-zheng, who also directs the production. Dramaturgy is by David Greenspan. The show features Chinese singers and 70 Chinese acrobats and martial artists. The orchestra put together for the production includes members of the UK Chinese Music Ensemble (led by Cheng Yu), Demon Strings and Sense of Sound.

In addition to the production, the Manchester International Festival also ran a programme of educational workshops in local schools, in partnership with the Chinese Arts Centre. In the programme, local children were introduced to the tale of Journey to the West, and learnt about various aspects of Chinese culture, music and dance, including mask-making, puppet-making, Tai Chi and Kung Fu.

Hewlett and Albarn included characters from Monkey: Journey to the West in an animation sequence titled “Journey to the East.” The BBC used the sequence to introduce coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics, held in Beijing

Here’s the feature one trailer

I was really surprised to find this project was that ambitious, that expansive.  In the strictest sense, it’s not a rock and roll opera.  In fact, it’s more truly a multi-media version of traditional Chinese opera.  With Albarn involved, there are definitely rock elements.  Regardless of how one might label it, the project, to me, is stunning in its daringness.  It’s outside the box (to borrow the overused corporate cliche.)  To me, that makes it worth a look or listen.