So I got to know The Who’s ‘Time Is Passing’ via the band’s Odds & Sods compilation. I think I listened to that before I got round to hearing Who’s Next and other studio albums by the band. I know it was definitely before Tommy. But I can’t remember why. A possible reason I can think of, is that I saw it once got a perfect 10/10 score on Pitchfork – in a review you won’t see on the site now – and was convinced enough just by that to check it out. When Odds & Sods was originally released in 1974, it contained 11 tracks and ran for a solid vinyl-record length of 40 minutes and 23 seconds. But when it was reissued in 1998, with CDs being the norm and allowing more available strage, a fine decision was made to double the amount of songs on the compilation, ramping the running time up to a grand 77 minutes. This was the version that was digitally available back in 2011, which was when I first went through the album, though on a now-defunct website called we7.com that was sort of a precursor to all the streaming services that exist now.

‘Time Is Passing’ was one of the tracks added to that ’98 reissue. It was originally written for the Lifehouse rock opera Pete Townshend had envisioned to be The Who’s big follow-up to Tommy. But because no one could understand what the story was after countless explanations, Townshend had a breakdown. It was decided the opera be trimmed down to its highlights, resulting in Who’s Next. But man, with the amount of good music Townshend was writing and The Who were making at the time, Lifehouse could have been the greatest rock album ever. ‘Time Is Passing’ would have been on it, in the opera’s first act, establishing the country lifestyle the protagonist follows and introducing the “music has the potential save us all” theme that anchors the entire plot. Roger Daltrey sings about playing while [his] sister bangs a jar and walking by the sea and other natural/homely things, all the while he yearns to hear a piece of music he feels will set him free (which ties into ‘Pure and Easy’, but that’s opening a whole other can of worms that needn’t be). And for a Who song, it’s performed pretty straight. Just Daltrey singing over the musicianship of Townshend, Entwistle and Moon with that growl of his. It’s strong, strong stuff.

I liked ‘Time Is Passing’ almost immediately. Thought it was very full-sounding to the ears, So much so that I didn’t realise that what I was listening to was a mono mix, made from the right channel of the original stereo which was then forced into the centre. When the track was found for the 1998 reissue, the left channel of the stereo mix was apparently in such a bad condition that it was discarded. I’m sure I read this somewhere, think it was on thewho.net before that site went through changes that made it worse. A person on YouTube used a bootleg and the official release to make an approximation of how the entire soundscape initially was. It turned out there was a keyboard and steel guitar adding a whole other dimension that everyone was missing out on. An official Who-certified stereo mix wasn’t available for the public to hear until 2023 when the Super Deluxe Who’s Next:Life House Super Deluxe edition release was released. Now that’s around, it’s pretty much replaced the Odds & Sods version in my eyes, as much as I do appreciate it for being the initial one I heard. Nothing beats a good stereo mix, though.