"My Generation" is a song by the English rock band the Who, which became a hit and one of their most recognizable songs. The song was named the 11th greatest song by Rolling Stone on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It became part of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for "historical, artistic and significant" value. It has been considered the band's signature song. The song was released as a single on 29 October 1965, reaching No. 2 in the United Kingdom (The Who's highest-charting single in their home country along with 1966's "I'm a Boy") and No. 74 in the United States. "My Generation" also appeared on The Who's 1965 debut album, My Generation (The Who Sings My Generation in the United States), and in greatly extended form on their live album Live at Leeds (1970). Although The Who re-recorded the song for the Ready Steady Who EP in 1966, ultimately it was not included, and remained unissued until the 1995 remaster of A Quick One. The main difference between this version and the original is that it is heavily abridged and instead of the hail of feedback which closes the original, the band play a chaotic rendition of Edward Elgar's "Land of Hope and Glory". In the album's liner notes the song is thus credited to both Pete Townshend and Elgar. Inspiration Townshend reportedly wrote the song on a train and is said to have been inspired by the Queen Mother, who is alleged to have had Townshend's 1935 Packard hearse towed off a street in Belgravia because she was offended by the sight of it during her daily drive through the neighbourhood. Townshend has also credited Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues" as the inspiration for the song, saying "Without Mose I wouldn't have written 'My Generation'." Townshend told Rolling Stone in 1985 that "'My Generation' was very much about trying to find a place in society." On a later interview for Good Morning America, in 1989, the band was discussing the upcoming 1989 tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Tommy, and Townshend talked about the famous line "I hope I die before I get old." He said that, for him, when he wrote the lyrics, "old" meant "very rich". Composition The song's lyrics comprise