"I hope I die before I get old."

"My Generation" is a song by one of my favorites music bands, The Who, and at the same time, one of my favorite songs of all the time. The lyrics were written by the guitarrist of the group, Pete Townshend, in 1965 and it was released for their debut album "My Generation".

As the songwriter, Townshend, said "The song was very much about trying to find a place in society." it was taken as a "rebel song" for people of the era because the lyrics.

One of the highlights of the song is that the instruments play it in an aggresive and heavy way and for the first time in the rock history, a bass solo is featured in a song. Also the vocalist, Roger Daltrey, sings here with a kind of stutter (as if he was showing a sort of frustration or wanting to say something that it isn't allowed in the time).

I love this song because it has a meaning of change for this new generation of the sixties. Adults, back then, were so conservative and new ideas were hard criticized by them (remember it was an era full of changes: hippies, liberal thinking, different lifestyles, new music, free love) so they needed to say that youth generation wasn't better or worst than others, it was just different and they required to be heard.

What I understand in their famous line "I hope I die before I get old" is that they do not want to grow up like conservative and boring adults, they prefer to die instead of being like the old people they are facing.

I want to show their live performance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 where The Who made their famous scene destroying their instruments and exploiting Keith Moon's drum kit at the end of the song.

Enjoy it!