When we discuss The Who – what do you think of? Pinball Wizard? Baba O’Riley? The Kids Are Alright?
All fine choices, and nobody can argue that The Who will go down as one of the greatest, or at least most influential, rock bands of the 20th century, and for good reason.
Yet, even though they will go down in history as greats, and they deserve all of those accolades and if Behind Blue Eyes come on, you better not press ‘Next’… none of that is what comes to mind for me when I think of The Who.
I can’t stop myself from thinking of a song that The Who didn’t do specifically.. Pete Townsend did, but not The Who. For years, I just assumed every movie that featured a comedic bent on a love story needed this song to even be considered a good film. In the movie in my head, the end credits must be overlaid with Let My Love Open The Door – even if the movie is a tragic apocalyptic horror film.. perhaps specifically in that instance.
I don’t know what happened in the late 80s, but starting somewhere around Look Who’s Talking, this song became synonymous with ‘An unlikely pair find love’ and ever since then it has been featured in a list of movies that, upon doing research, is every movie ever made. Pete Townsend surely lives quite well for himself, but is it because he was the lead guitarist of a band of legends or is it because when a boy meets a girl (can we make this any more obvious…) and sparks fly, the only song that is in your head right now is Open The Door.
Is that Townsends real legacy? Not a rock opera. Not the 1976 Guinness Book of World Record’s Loudest Concert. Not the fact that he wrote almost the entire Who discography…. but that he created a song that became a pop-culture saturated meme of a song long before people put impact font on cat pictures… and still, if it came on the radio right now, I would still bop to it.
What do you think?
