Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who [Paperback]

Dave Marsh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1983

Written at the request of Pete Townshend and endorsed by the rest of the band, this in-depth history of The Who took author Dave Marsh three years to research and write. Complete with photographs, it covers the group’s origins and meteoric rise to fame, reveals inside information on the personalities and lives of the band members, and documents the relationships, drugs, destruction, money, and mayhem behind the music of this legendary rock band..

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 546 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (October 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312071558
• ISBN-13: 978-0312071554
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,311,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun read, January 5, 2003

By 

J. Remington "John Remington" (Adams, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who (Paperback)

Dave Marsh can be an arrogant, snotty,and belligerent writer. Which is fitting as The Who often shared the same faults. Marsh does everything he possibly can to don the cloak of The Who and write as though he was one of them.

I agree with other reviewers in criticising the book's overall veracity. But that really is a small matter as "Before I Get Old" frequently is as entertaining as the group it documents.

Pete Townsend certainly is one of the few geniuses Rock music has produced. "Before I Get Old" certainly works extremely hard at presenting Townsend as Rock's All Father, a mantel Townsend himself worked very hard to develop. As a result, Townsend often comes off a real prententious jerk. But God, what great music he and his band mates produced out of their many disputes.

Marsh works hard at praising the contributions of Daltrey, Entwhistle and of course the incomparable Moon the Loon in producing some of the finest music Rock could ever hope to produce (boy, that was an arrogant statement- see the book rubs off. Marsh also never loses the fact that he is first and foremost a rabid fan. Maybe that is the book's biggest weakness, maybe it is the book's biggest strength. Marsh builds the case that The Who were the greatest Rock and Roll group of all time. An opinion I share (The Beatles are in a class all by them selves). He also makes the case that The Who really died with Keith Moon.

"Before I Get Old" is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but it will do until we get the definitive work. As is, this is a blast to read.

42 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clever use of the word Who here..., April 24, 2000

By 

Monkey Knuckle Asteroid - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who (Paperback)

It seems to me that if you pick up a rock bio and expect to get something even close to the reality of what really went on, you are setting yourself up for a hard fall.

Dave Marsh does a really good job, however, at summing up the Who's career and belting out the facts with nice writing and concise direction. You're given behind the scenes looks at a lot of infighting, songs, albums, lives and careers and it all gels rather well together.

Marsh definitely has his opinions and is not hesitant in letting loose with them. I say good. Rock journalism is not the place for objectivity, just as rock n' roll is the essential forum to spill out everything you ever thought about everything. He has his biases and likes and it's nice to see because from that you understand that you are reading a Who fan's bio of the band. A much more well-informed fan than most, but basically, a fan.

The downside is also an upside. The downside being that almost all the quotes and personal asides in the book are taken from other interviews or films or whatnot, but that's also an upside. You get a collage view of the Who from their early days of snotty-punk-rock and their later days of fried-out elegance.

Pound for pound, in my book, the Who were the best band to come from the whole British invasion. And this book is as good a companion piece to the music as you're apt to find. Either it's this or waiting for their respective autobiographies....

Then you really won't know who to trust.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great band deserves better, June 6, 2002

By 

a writer (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who (Paperback)

Nobody would mistake the warring personalities of The Who with, say, the unified (pre-White Album) Beatles. But the group was one of the best British outfits of all time, and Dave Marsh's book, although lengthier and more involved than other books on the band, still manages to miss the drama. Would that Philip Norman could turn his sights on this magnificent band!

Most of the trouble Marsh has with the subject is the emphasis on Pete Townshend's natterings about pop music. Townshend was (and is, if he gets the chance) a voluble man when it comes to music. It's certain that, if he didn't possess an ounce of musical talent, he would've become a first-rate novelist or journalist. But Marsh's own extended forays into pop culture theory bog down the reader. Fans of The Who are not stupid types. They understand where the band came from, much as Beatle fans know about that band's origins. But, history aside, it's the telling of the tale that counts. Having read Marsh's book several times over twenty years, I've come to like it less and less.

The author seems to take a subconsciously perverse delight in skewering the band's foibles, whether it's their reliance on staged ritual drama/violence for a few years longer than deemed acceptable (by Marsh), or Townshend's complexes and frustrations in getting his grandiose ideas across to the other band members. These were part of the band's core identity and they wrestled for years with the image of the angry upstart Mods and, later, bona-fide rock legends who pounded stage after stage until Moon's untimely end. Another writer would perhaps come across as sympathetic while still taking a critical view of the group's history. By the book's end (in 1982, when Kenney Jones filled in for Moon), the band are seen as nothing more than an exhausted assembly of sell-outs going through one more corporate-sponsored mega-tour. What would Marsh later make of U2, Springsteen, Oasis and a dozen reunited 60s bands? Such a disappointing book for the group that gave us The Who Sell Out, Tommy, Who's Next and Quadrophenia.