Sir, – Jack Lyons hardly does himself justice when he says that he was the inspiration for lines in Quadrophenia by The Who (Irish Lives, June 1st). In fact meeting Jack Lyons changed Pete Townshend's life! In his autobiograhy Who I Am, Townshend writes of The Who performing at the Goldhawk club in West London in 1964 and playing I Can't Explain over and over.
“Afterwards a delegation asked if they could come backstage and speak to me. Led by a gangly Irish boy called Jack Lyons, they paraded in and told me they really liked the song. I thanked them, asking what they particularly liked about it. Jack stuttered that he couldn’t really explain. I tried to help: the song’s about being unable to find the words. “That’s it!” Jack shouted; the others all nodded. Without my art-school training I doubt this moment would have touched me the way it did. But it changed my life . . . My new (art) patrons stood before me. Their brief was simple: we need you to explain that we can’t explain; we need you to say what we are unable to say . . . I knew with absolute certainty, that after all what we were doing was going to be Art” (p80).
So, as he drives around Cork on his Piaggio 49cc scooter, retired postman Lyons can claim credit for more than he knows, more than he can explain. – Yours, etc,
FERGUS WHITTY,
Greeshford Road,
Kilkenny.