The Kids Are Alright (song)

"The Kids Are Alright" is a song written by Pete Townshend of the Who. It appears as the seventh track on The Who's debut album My Generation (1965). A similar song, titled "It's Alright", was recorded by the Rockin' Vickers and released as a single in March 1966.

"The Kids Are Alright"
Cover of the 1966 Netherlands single
Single by The Who
from the album My Generation
B-side
Released
  • 12 August 1966 (1966-08-12) (UK)
  • July 1966 (1966-07) (US)
Recorded
Genre
Length
  • 3:05 (UK)
  • 2:45 (US)
Label
Songwriter(s)Pete Townshend
Producer(s)Shel Talmy
The Who singles chronology
"A Legal Matter"
(1966)		 "The Kids Are Alright"
(1966)		 "I'm a Boy"
(1966)

Background

"The Kids Are Alright" was not released as a single until more than six months after it first appeared on the LP, first in the United States, and in the United Kingdom the following month. While not a huge hit at the time (reaching number 41 in the UK and number 85 in the US), the song, along with the album "My Generation", became anthems for the band and the Mod subculture of England in the 1960s. It later became the name of the documentary for the band in 1979. The song was edited for the U.S. single and this version has become much more common than the original full-length U.K. album version. The edit of the song features a substantially shortened instrumental break. A promotional film for the song was shot in Hyde Park in July or August 1966. In addition to appearing on My Generation, the beginning of the song can be heard on Quadrophenia, after the song "Helpless Dancer" has faded out.

The song uses a standard I-IV-V chord progression in the key of D while the chorus uses a ii-V-IV-I chord progression.

In present-day live performances, The Who add a long extra section to the end of "The Kids Are Alright", with partly improvised lyrics discussing the lessons learned since the song's composition. A version of this can be heard on Live at the Royal Albert Hall, recorded in 2000, in which Townshend assesses:

"When I wrote this song I was nothing but a kid, trying to work out right and wrong through all the things I did. I was kind of practising with my life. I was kind of taking chances in a marriage with my wife. I took some stuff and I drank some booze. There was almost nothing that I didn't try to use. And somehow I'm alright."[3]

After John Entwistle's death, the extra lyrics occasionally made reference to him, and his love of old red wine, which later inspired their song "Old Red Wine", a tribute to Entwistle.

During 2006 the song was listed at No. 34 in Pitchfork's list of the 200 greatest songs of the 1960s.[4]

Covers

The song has been covered by bands such as The Queers, Goldfinger, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Dropkick Murphys, Hi-Standard, Green Day, Pearl Jam, The Raveonettes, The Kids and Belle & Sebastian who closed their set with it at the Bowlie Weekender in 1999. In 1995, the band Flatus recorded a version for their album Talk Show Hero. In 2008, Billy Bob Thornton's band The Boxmasters recorded a version of the song as the closing number on the second disc of their album The Boxmasters. The song was also recorded for a covers album by Matthew Sweet and Bangles' vocalist Susanna Hoffs. Keith Moon, the drummer of The Who, also recorded a cover of this song for his solo album Two Sides of the Moon. In 2016, the song was covered in the Nickelodeon television show School of Rock.

This song is referenced in the title of the song "The Kids Aren't Alright" by the Offspring, the unrelated Fall Out Boy song of the same title, "The Kids are Alt-Right" by Bad Religion, "The Kids Are Insane" by Urge Overkill, "The Kids Are All Wrong" by Lagwagon, "All the Kids Are Right" by Local H, AWOLNATION's "THISKIDSNOTALRIGHT" and "The Kids" by The Parlor Mob, in which the main chorus line is 'No the kids ain't alright', as well as the song "Kids" by Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. The title of the song was also used in the film The Kids Are All Right and for episode titles of the US television shows That 70's Show and Supernatural, as well as the Ballers Season 4 episode "The Kids Are Aight". It was also punned and featured in The Simpsons episode "The Kids Are All Fight". It was also used in the Final Fantasy VII novel The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story, the novel having various references to The Who.

gollark: Well, that doesn't mean you're... actually meaningfully alive.
gollark: mwahahaha]
gollark: ++delete religions
gollark: Apparently heav is unbanned.
gollark: I don't because I am too lazy.

References
  1. Unterberger, Richie. The Who - The Kids Are Alright at AllMusic. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  2. LaBate, Steve (18 December 2009). "Jangle Bell Rock: A Chronological (Non-Holiday) Anthology… from The Beatles and Byrds to R.E.M. and Beyond". Paste. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  3. Live at the Royal Albert Hall 2000.
  4. Tangari, Joe. "Pitchfork's 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s". pitchfork.com. Pitchfork.
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