![]() Image Credit: Chris Morphet/Redferns/Getty “I Can’t Reach You” (‘The Who Sell Out’, 1967).In the Who Are You liner notes, Townshend describes Entwistle’s playing on “Trick of the Light” as sounding like “a musical Mack truck.” His thundering bass and growling vocals make this his most overlooked Who track. Here, he came up with a tune about a man so unsure about his sexual prowess that he hires a prostitute and begs her for an honest assessment of his skills. “Trick of the Light” (‘Who Are You’, 1978)Įntwistle wrote songs about men facing things they feared, whether it was a furious spouse (“My Wife”), alcoholism (“Whiskey Man”), a creepy spider (“Boris the Spider”) or death (“Heaven and Hell”).Daltrey said years later that Who’s Next songs like “Bargain” were “rooted inside of us.” Over the course of several sessions with producer Glyn Johns at London’s Olympic Studio, “Bargain” grew into a triumphant anthem, with Moon delivering an explosive yet intricate performance many consider one of his finest and Daltrey sending the song’s powerful sentiment skyward. What emerged was an open-hearted expression of Townshend’s devotion to Sufism, and religious faith in general: “How much of a bargain it would be even to love everything in order to be at one with God,” he said later. “On Lifehouse, it was a love song, but a song about a higher love, a love between disciple and master,” he said. Townshend began work on the song while demo’ing material for his Lifehouse project. Perhaps as a way to say thanks, Walsh gave Townshend a Gretsch acoustic guitar, which he ended up playing on “Bargain” when the band recorded it. In 1970, the Who took Walsh’s hard-rock trio the James Gang on tour as an opening act. One of the most euphoric moments on Who’s Next got an assist from guitarist Joe Walsh. When Townshend was working out the album’s narrative, he began it with “It’s a Boy,” but he told Rolling Stone in 1969, “That would have been too blunt of an opening.” Instead, he juxtaposed the urgency of “See Me, Feel Me” with the glee of “Pinball Wizard” in an instrumental intro: “This clues you in to a lot of themes and gives a continuity to the tracks.” It singlehandedly elevated the rock album to a “rock opera.” This five-minute piece, which opens Tommy and foreshadows its thematic and musical themes, was an afterthought. Image Credit: Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty …It sounds just like a duck, doesn’t it?” It was inspired, Townshend has said, by “me riding around in the mobile caravan I’ve bought.” Capturing the feel of driving in an air-conditioned auto, leaving the “police and the tax man” behind, the track featured another of Townshend’s early forays into technology: his acoustic guitar run through what he called “one of the original crude guitar synthesizers. This exuberant Townshend-sung track was originally intended for a car-chase sequence in Lifehouse but ended up on Who’s Next. Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Since their return, this song has been appearing in their shows for years. “Rock & roll will never die,” Daltrey sings. In the album’s liner notes, Townshend thanked Texan keyboardist John “Rabbit” Bundrick, who became an ancillary member of the band at the time, for “help and inspiration on ‘Another Tricky Day.'” But the sentiment is pure Who, a defiant yet complex tune about music’s enduring power amid life’s problems. Though the song was never released as a single, the Who shot a video for “Another Tricky Day,” a highlight of the otherwise lackluster Face Dances. “Another Tricky Day” (‘Face Dances’, 1981).It concludes with a fury of acid-rock guitar that would launch some of the Who’s more explosive onstage jams during their extensive tours in 1967 and ’68, though it soon left their live set. Written just prior to Townshend’s first LSD experience, this uncharacteristic slice of paisley power pop echoes the Beatles’ advice for trippers – “Turn off your mind, relax and flow downstream” – from “Tomorrow Never Knows.” “Relax” is reminiscent of the material Syd Barrett was recording with Pink Floyd, featuring a Hammond organ (played by Townshend) rising and falling tranquilly in the background. “What’s interesting in our group is that the roles are reversed,” Townshend said. According to Townshend, it was also Jimi Hendrix’s favorite Who song, which shouldn’t be all that surprising. Never released as a single, it still became the group’s most requested live song. “I loved John, obviously, for his eccentricities.” The first song Entwistle wrote for the Who bowled the band over, highlighting his dark, absurdist sense of humor and distinct playing style. “He was a very strange fellow,” Townshend said of Entwistle. Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty “Boris the Spider” (‘A Quick One’, 1966).
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