Grandma explains "Tommy" by the Who

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmM6ydeRTm-TqNZeB-S2JghvuAyp1g7zp&feature=share

click the link above and listen as you read the story below.

About a year after we moved from the city to then-rural Chilliwack, a friend got me a weekend job cleaning the Dairy Queen on Saturday night.  The manager was a terrific boss who let me come in any time before Sunday opening to do my four hours of cleaning.  He invited me to help myself to sodas and Dilly Bars while I worked. This was great for me.  It meant I could play high school sports out of town and still come back late to do my cleaning.  It also meant I had a few bucks in my bank account.

One of my first purchases was a big boxy record player - mono HiFi - that I bought at a second hand store in Seattle on a trip with cousin Mark and Aunt Betty.  Five bucks and I had a musical world awaiting me. The next order of business was to purchase, with very limited funds, quality records. Records were never bought at the store for full price.  Sales,  deleted issues, used records and the Columbia Record Club.  All albums had to have more than one "hit" or I wouldn't buy them, and "Best of" records were a premium buy.

My Columbia record selection in early fall was the Rock Opera "Tommy".  I hadn't heard the record in its entirety but I had heard enough of it to know it would meet my qualifications for purchase, plus it was a double album for same price as a regular. The day it arrived mom handed it to me and said, "Why don't you take this next door and listen to it with your Grandma?"

Huh? 

Grandma hated rock music (or "infernal racket" as she often called it).  She once told me to turn off George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" on Boxing Day (it was a valued gift from a school friend), adding "awful, awful, eeccchhh" for emphasis.  Of note, she seemed fine with the "Hallelujah" early chorus, her negative reaction came during the "Hare Krishna" late chorus.  I wasn't convinced the music appreciation visit was a good idea.

My mind raced through the selections I would be sharing with her:
Fiddle About - wicked Uncle Ernie, yikes!
The Acid Queen - I don't want to have to explain what that is or how I know...
And all that "See Me - Feel Me - Touch Me - Heal Me" bordered on an interpretation of religion my sixteen year old head was not prepared to entertain with my devoutly Catholic Grandmother.

"Mom, I don't think Grandma is going to want to listen to this."
"Try her."
I tucked my new record under my arm and headed next door to ask my beloved Grandma if she wanted to listen to my new record with me. "It's the Rock Opera Tommy by the Who." Her eyebrow raised at the word "opera". 
"Bring it in."

I carefully cut the protective plastic and examined the photo contents for objectionable pictures of Fiddling or Acid Queens, and placed the needle on the record, held my breath and waited ready to stop the music at a moment's notice.
"This is the overture," she said," where you will hear little bits of the each song in the opera."
I did not know that.  Suddenly I was hearing bits of each song - Pinball Wizard, Go to the Mirror, See Me, Feel me, We're not Gonna Take it, Ernie, I'm Free... My head was tingling. 
"this is called an aria" 
"he's a tenor but the other one was an alto"
"it would seem the composer is also the librettist and a main performer" .... 

Grandma had explained The Who to me, Grandma had explained opera to me. 

 "See, here, we heard that horn section early in the Overture."  And she was buried in the story line about the English military man who came home after the war to a completely changed life.
We had tea, listened to the opera in its entirety, and I learned I could hold my breath for 3:30 (Acid Queen).

I managed to sneak in a washroom break while Uncle Ernie fiddled about.

Upon reflection, I should not have been so surprised.  Grandma had introduced me to Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Kingston Trio.  She loved melody, she loved a good story, "Tommy" had all of that.  What it didn't have, I suppose, was lot of Hare Krishna choruses.