Commentary

Griping about the void to a soundtrack by The Who

September 3, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

“I’m singing this not because it fits in well / with the chords I’m playing / I can’t pretend there’s any meaning here / Or in the things I’m saying.”

Those are lyrics from The Who’s song Getting in Tune.

Roger Daltrey recently spoke about the ills of social media. He’s the bloke who sang in The Who back in a time when music seemed to matter more, and it had been an important voice in the world, regardless of who was singing.

The Who, for any Generation Zers who aren’t familiar, famously wrote about teenage rebellion, the alienation of youth, and conflict between generations (that’s me, that old man shaking a fist in the air and griping about those kids and their music today). The Who was part of the storied British Invasion of music to North American ears and culture.

Daltrey told an English newspaper that social media has gotten everybody screaming at each other online but nobody’s listening. The new world of social media seems to be, in his eyes, destroying civilization. He likened social media to a platform for people to scream at each other, but there’s nobody listening even as they’re screaming and being screamed at.

“You can hear it in the street / See it in the dragging feet.”

Those are words from the song Relay.

Counting Likes and smiling emojis on social media posts and tallying so-called friends, even though many are people that haven’t been spoken to in years, is being content in the online world even though it means dragging feet in the real world.

Daltrey said social media is destroying civilization. I don’t know about that, but disillusionment has filled the chasm between the promise or hope of technology and how we’re using it.

It’s become difficult to even detect tone. Once you could hear through the nuance of language some of the meaning of what’s said. But all that’s lost now in the shortly worded blurbs that pass for communicating. The emoji hieroglyphics lack what’s conveyed by a human voice and what’s highlighted by a furrowed brow or a look in the eyes.

“Freedom tastes of reality/I’m free, I’m free/And I’m waiting for you to follow me”

Those are lines from the song I’m Free off the album Tommy. And it’s best heard on the Live at the Fillmore East 1968 album.

The rise of vastly improved technology was lauded as a means to free information and expanded horizons. I don’t mean this to be a Ted Kaczynski screed against technology, but people have become more alienated even as we were supposed to have been brought closer through an immediacy of contact afforded by social media.

“Don’t cry, don’t raise your eyes/It’s only teenage wasteland.”

I recently read something. And-gasp-it was found on the internet.

“The iPhone launched in 2007, when the oldest Gen Zers were 10,” according to the PEW Research Centre. “By the time they were in their teens, the primary means by which young Americans connected with the web was through mobile devices, Wi-Fi and high-bandwidth cellular service. Social media, constant connectivity and on-demand entertainment and communication are innovations Millennials adapted to as they came of age.

“For those born after 1996, these are largely assumed.”

The report went further: Recent research has shown dramatic shifts in youth behaviours, attitudes and lifestyles – both positive and concerning – for those who came of age in this era.

“What we don’t know is whether these are lasting generational imprints or characteristics of adolescence that will become more muted over the course of their adulthood. Beginning to track this new generation over time will be of significant importance.

“I’m happy when life’s good, and when it’s bad I cry/I got values but I don’t know how or why”

That’s from the song The Seeker.

What’s sought is your soul in a darkening world. One’s identity, I suppose, or a place in the world. That’s something that spans the generations. Here’s another lyric that suits the argument that society missed its mark with social media: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.”

That’s Won’t Get Fooled Again.

Yeah, only if.

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