Story of the Song: Who are You by The Who

From The Independent archive: Robert Webb on ‘Who Are You’ by The Who

The Who circa 1978 (l-r): Keith Moon, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle (Getty)

After a 12-hour meeting with Who management and the financial Svengali, Allen Klein, Pete Townshend was in no mood to stay sober. At London's Speakeasy club he collared the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones and Paul Cook, who took pity on the antediluvian star. Later, reeling from the nightclub, he settled in a Soho doorway before a policeman recognised him and urged him home. The next day, he wrote a song about the night's events: “I staggered back to the underground/ And the breeze blew back my hair/ I remember throwin' punches around/ And preachin' from my chair/ Who are you?”

He had a sense that the band's days – and perhaps even those of some of its members – were numbered and wanted to mop up whatever useable material remained in the vaults. He unearthed a lively synthesiser riff from 1971, and set to work. “The weird background guitar sound on this was created with a top-secret ARP 2600 patch I invented,” he later revealed. The sawing noise at its heart is an EBow, a hand-held, battery-powered, guitar-bow.

Townshend took his demo to the band: “Who Are You” was recorded at Ramport studio in October 1977. Roger Daltrey barks out the nihilistic lyric, (originally giving it extra punk-appeal by ad-libbing “Who the f*** are you?”), Andy Fairweather Low, once of Amen Corner, sings back-up and the former Zombie, Rod Argent, plays keyboards. It was the last great Who single and the title track of the band's final album with Keith Moon on drums. Just a few weeks after its release, it was in the Top 20 and Moon was dead. “My heart is like a broken cup/ I only feel right on my knees,” Townshend sings in the closing verse. It's as much about the demands of new friendship as it is about bad-tempered and cynical blood-letting.