Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let’s go into another Three Tune Tuesday post.
As always, thanks to 
Today’s set circles around a deceptively simple question: who are you?
Not in a résumé sense, but in the deeper ways we ask it — spiritually, socially, and sometimes through humor so absurd it short-circuits the whole question.
Trust me, I’m going somewhere with this. Three very different answers. Let’s jump in.
Middle Aged Dad Jam Band – Who Are You (The Who)
You guys know by now how much I love Middle Aged Dad Jam Band. These guys are so uncool it curves back around and becomes cool. I’d love hanging out with these guys.
The original by The Who is full of swagger, suspicion, and late-night self-interrogation. Pete Townshend wrote it after a particularly messy night, and you can hear that half-defensive, half-accusatory edge in every line. It’s not a philosophical question so much as a challenge: prove it.
What this cover does, intentionally or not, is drain away the bravado and leave the question hanging there, unresolved. Sung by guys who’ve clearly lived some life, the lyric lands differently. It’s less Who do you think you are? and more How did we end up here? Or maybe just, let’s goof around singing old songs we know. Either way.
The Analogues - Within You Without You
If the first song asks who are you in a social sense, this one asks it in the only place that question ultimately survives: inside your own head.
“Within You Without You” has always been an oddity in the Beatles catalog. No John. No Paul harmonies. No rock band, really. Just George Harrison, Indian instruments, and a calm insistence that the self you’re defending so fiercely might not be what you think it is.
It also happens to be one of my favorite Beatles songs.
What The Beatles did in the studio was already restrained. What The Analogues do here is something else entirely: they remove the 1960s exoticism and treat the piece with near-classical seriousness. No psychedelia. No wink to the audience. Just structure, space, and patience. And they do such a great job!
The message hasn’t aged a day. We still cling to our identities — political, cultural, personal — like they’re solid objects instead of temporary arrangements. Harrison’s lyric quietly dismantles that illusion without shouting, without demanding agreement.
It’s not trying to convert you. It’s just pointing to something.
Monty Python – The Lumberjack Song
And then, naturally, we arrive at Monty Python. Something completely different. Or is it?
On the surface, this is pure nonsense. A burly lumberjack proudly asserting his masculinity, only to calmly reveal that none of it is quite what it seems. The crowd gasps. The song carries on. Reality bends and snaps, and everyone smiles.
But here’s the thing: The Lumberjack Song is also about identity. It just refuses to treat the subject with reverence.
Monty Python understood something deeply human: when identity becomes a performance, the performance eventually collapses under its own seriousness. The song doesn’t argue or moralize. It just keeps piling on contradictions until the whole idea of a “proper” identity looks ridiculous.
And that makes it liberating.
Didn’t think I could tie those together, did you? Boo-yah!
Taken together, these three tracks form a loose arc:
Which… is a pretty accurate map of getting older.
So, what’s your favorite this week?
| David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
