The Who’s ‘Tommy’ Turns 50

The Who’s iconic rock opera, ‘Tommy’, has turned 50 years old. This form of art is a perfect example of making something tragic into something beautiful.

The Who’s Pete Townshend has long been open about the physical and sexual abuse he suffered as a child, which he’d later process with the help of ambitious, personal rock n’ roll.

May 23rd marked the 50th anniversary of the Who’s Tommy, in which Townshend expressed his spiritual and personal aches like never before.

In his 2012 memoir, Who I Am, he wrote that his maternal grandmother, Emma Dennis, denied him food and held his head underwater in a tub at the age of six, and that five years later, he was sexually abused by two leaders on a Sea Scouts trip.

But Townshend’s upbringing wasn’t always so tormented; when he was around the age of eight, he made a visit to his Aunt Trilby, a spiritual type who encouraged him to express himself through art and music. Tinkering with her out-of-tune piano, his emotions began to manifest into a symphony only he could hear. “I found some chords that made me lightheaded,” he wrote. “My head filled with the most complex, disturbing orchestral music.”

Through characters like the druggy Acid Queen, abusive Uncle Ernie and cruel Cousin Kevin, Townshend let his pain play out on an imaginary, conceptual plane for the first time 50 years ago.