Tag Archives: anything

#1395: The Who – Too Much of Anything

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You remember how I wrote about another track by The Who maybe a couple weeks ago? ‘Time Is Passing’, that was the one. Well, copy and paste the first paragraph from that post and replace that song’s title with today’s, and the facts almost remain the same. ‘Too Much of Anything’ was another tune written by Pete Townshend, in his Lifehouse mode, 1970 to 1971. He went a bit barmy. Lifehouse was abandoned. Who’s Next was made out of its remains. Odds & Sods was released in 1974, prepared by bass guitarist John Entwistle while the other three members were preparing for work on the Tommy film. Unlike ‘Time Is Passing’, ‘Too Much…’ was available to hear on the original ’74 edition. The above video is the version from the ’98 reissue. It’s meant to be a remix too, but I don’t hear too much difference between it and what was released in the ’70s. Maybe you can.

By the time Pete Townshend was writing ‘Too Much…’, The Who’s newest album out for the public to consume was this little rock opera thing called Tommy. The band were shot into another stratosphere in its wake. Being the main songwriter and guitarist in one of the biggest rock bands in the world, I think it’s fair to say Pete Townshend could have anything handed to him on a plate without even asking. Really, anything. And clearly today’s subject was written during a time when it was all a bit overwhelming. There’s not much explanation that needs to be done when it comes to the lyrics, meaning what you read is all that’s being said. The words are very autobiographical, even if they were meant to be from the perspective of a character in the Lifehouse story. And the overall result is a somewhat upbeat-sounding track that ponders upon the effects of overexposure, with a great singalong chorus to string it all together too.

Apparently, the only reason ‘Too Much…’ wasn’t on Who’s Next or released as a standalone single was because Townshend found it hypocritical for a bunch of hedonists to be delivering a song, with the subject matter it has, to the masses. But I’ve only recently figured out how sort of similar, musically, it is to ‘Getting in Tune’, which did make it onto Who’s Next. Both songs have moments where they go into double time. Both end in a key higher than how they initially start. Perhaps someone in the band or the producer noticed this and a decision was made. To be honest, if it were up to me, ‘Too Much…’ would have taken the spot, for sure. But ‘Getting in Tune’ is all right. Also, maybe they didn’t like how the track turned out when they recorded it in 1971, ’cause it sounded like this at first, but a few years later there it was on Odds & Sods with a new/alternate Daltrey vocal and an edit that cut out a few extra measures near the end. Just throwing out theories here. But at the end of the day, it’s a song I like. All that counts.

#949: Tame Impala – Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control

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Very well might be the song with the longest title that I’ve covered on here so far. ‘Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control’ is the penultimate track on Tame Impala’s 2012 album, Lonerism, a record whose mesh of psychedelia and hard rock with these spiralling synths and accessible melodies warmed a lot of people’s hearts upon its release and to this day. Kevin Parker embarked on going into a more pop-orientated direction, starting with 2015’s Currents and making itself more apparent on The Slow Rush, and sometimes there’ll be a comment or two that I see wishing that his music was more like the Lonerism days. It probably won’t happen. But I silently wish it too just a little. Though maybe he’ll surprise us all.

‘Nothing That Has Happened’ carries a theme that, thinking about it, would be further echoed in the first track of Tame Impala’s next record. Things that arise in life are at the most by chance, and really we have to just let these things happen (nudge-nudge, wink-wink). Tells you everything you need to know about the theme in the title to be honest. But when it comes to the music, it’s a swirling, twisting and turning six-minute experience. What I’ve always envisioned when hearing this song, is it being played live at a concert where people are high and having a good time. But for the narrator here it all gets a bit too much. He freaks out, leaves the room, gets calmed down by his girlfriend (spoken interlude here provided by Melody Prochet of Melody’s Echo Chamber) and goes back in chiller than before, but still having a bit of an existential crisis. And it’s just brilliant how this is all reflected in the production, like how the music goes quieter during the interlude, almost like its playing behind some doors before increasing in volume again. Or how the synthesizers upon the narrator’s ‘return’ to the room, get all hazy and pan all over the place in the ears. Simply a great passage of music to get lost in.

Think a shout-out should be made to Kevin Parker’s drumming throughout the whole song. I remember seeing a video where someone described his fills as the sound of a drumkit ‘falling down the stairs’, and I think that’s quite the accurate way to portray it. I think the same fill pattern is replayed over and over during the verses, but the way they fall from the snare to the toms and then are finished off with the cymbal crashes on each guitar strum is pretty wicked. Hard not to flail along and air-drum to them. Like other songs on Lonerism, the track has a rather long instrumental jam – one where the synthesizers are allowed to do their own thing, blipping in and out of the soundscape and doing some genuinely freaky stuff among the intensifying drums, before proceeding to undergo a solo that leads right back to the song’s introduction. So nice how circular the song is, and its probably the musical climax of the entire album before things slow down for its closer.