My Generation

I have just seen My Generation, a film on the so-called swinging sixties in London, narrated by the excellent Michael Caine, with a live Q&A session with Sir Michael from the National Film Theatre afterwards. The director, David Batty, did a superlative job. There have been many attempts to portray that period, but this film succeeded where so many have failed. Apparently, it received an eight-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. The audience in the cinema where I watched a live streaming applauded when the film was over.

For me, aged twenty in 1965, there were so many resonances. Perhaps the most poignant was the music playing over the introduction, Thunderclap Newman's Something in the Air, written, played and sung by my old mate Speedy Keen.

In late '65, Speedy and I were sharing a seedy room in a hooker's hotel in Modena in northern Italy. We were earning just enough from the band to pay for bed and board. My Generation, The Who's new record, had just come out, and somehow we got hold of a copy of it and attempted to play it at our gigs. Speedy was a seriously good drummer, but I never realized his potential as a songwriter. It is a tribute to his ability that Something in the Air has become a classic. He would have loved this film.

​(Originally posted on Facebook)