Tag Archives: odds & sods

#1075: The Who – Pure and Easy

Leave a reply

Look at that. Another Who song. So, the consensual opinion is that Who’s Next is their best album, right? I mean, I’d agree it’s an outstanding piece of work. I think Quadrophenia‘s better, but we’ve been through all of this already. But did you know that Who’s Next started off as a completely different monster altogether? There’s a whole Wikipedia section dedicated to the Lifehouse project, envisioned by Pete Townshend to be another rock opera, following on from Tommy, this time with a more science-fiction take to it and accompanied with this thought-out live show performance experience. At least I think it was something along those lines. But no one apart from him could understand the opera’s plot line, and so the whole thing was laid to the wayside except for eight of the nine songs that became the album we know today.

‘Pure and Easy’ was one of the tracks recorded during the Lifehouse/Who’s Next sessions. As part of the Lifehouse story, it was meant to act as something of the theme song for the opera’s protagonist and also introduced the concept of music/rock and roll being able to save the world – or something along that effect – that the opera’s plot was based on. Townshend has gone on record to state his great disappointment that the song wasn’t included on the final cut. It did however make a small appearance on there, with Daltrey singing a different take of the song’s first lines during the ending of ‘The Song Is Over’. Two versions of ‘Pure’ have been commercially released. There’s the take of the track that appeared on a Who’s Next reissue. It’s faster, and a lot of people like it for that reason alone. But the version that trumps that by many a mile in my eyes is the one that appeared in the band’s Odds & Sods compilation. It’s the one you can see up there. It’s slower, but the performance sounds massive in comparison.

Think it’s saying something about Townshend’s writing at the time that the band decided to leave this song in storage for so long. ‘Cause a track like this could be any other band’s greatest ever achievement. Lyrics aren’t my thing usually, but even here when I hear the words and read them, there’s a definite beauty and poetic feeling to them. “I listened and I heard music in a word/And words when you played your guitar/The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering/And a child flew past me riding in a star”. I mean, that’s a pretty cool set of lines, I think. And Daltrey sings ’em really nicely too. Track’s filled with these uplifting key changes and guitar hooks, there’s a massive change to a minor for the bridge, before switching back and finishing off with a rocking finale as Pete Townshend takes over the microphone, telling the listener to listen out for the note. Poorly typed out words can only do this one so much justice. Would suggest taking the time to hear it, really.

#954: The Who – Now I’m a Farmer

Leave a reply

Released on the band’s Odds & Sods compilation in 1974, The Who’s ‘Now I’m a Farmer’ is certainly one of the oddest songs the band had ever made, especially once you consider that the rather introspective and ambitious Quadrophenia rock opera had been their most recent work and out for almost a year by the time of the compilation’s arrival. The song’s origins went as far back as 1968 when Pete Townshend was in the early stages of writing Tommy. You can kind of hear the similarity between the melody of the verses in ‘Farmer’ and ‘Christmas’ from Tommy. It didn’t make it onto that album. It was then recorded in 1970 for an EP that then didn’t see the light of day. And so, left on the cutting room floor, no one except the band knew of the song’s existence for another four years.

In Townshend’s words, the song is a drug one, but you wouldn’t be able to tell because the lyrics generally concern vegetables and corn and cereal and other usual farming activities. In my opinion, the song’s always been about how great farming is and the delight that one can take from it, and there are several points in the track that can back that idea up. It’s a strange topic to choose for The Who, but it was also written during a period where the band were writing songs about dog racing and spirituality, so it seemed that it was just a case of “anything goes”. I don’t know if The Who have ever been considered pretentious at any point in their history, maybe so with all the rock operas and the concept albums, but it’s a track like this that shows that the group could always bring out humour in their music and not take things too seriously.

Unlike other Who songs of the ’70s, this one’s a little less electric-guitar centric. Townshend is present, more so on the acoustic, and instead the rhythm is provided by the great piano work of Nicky Hopkins. He wasn’t a member of the group, but whenever he was on a Who track he could always make them that much better. Same applies here. Look out for those runs he pulls off on the keys. In fact, on the original mix his piano is a lot more upfront in the mix with Keith Moon’s drums pushed way to the back. I’m more accustomed to the ’90s mix, so that difference always sounded unusual to me. It’s down below, select your preference.

#750: The Who – Little Billy

Leave a reply

1968 was something of a transitional year for The Who. After 1967’s The Who Sell Out didn’t do as commercially well as the band – especially songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend – thought it would, the group went straight back to work on making another album. That record, obviously, never saw the light of day – but some of the songs that were made for it (‘Glow Girl’, ‘Faith in Something Bigger’) were eventually released on Odds & Sods, a compilation of rarities and outtakes released in 1974. Others, like ‘Dogs’ and ‘Call Me Lightning’ were released as standalone singles.

‘Little Billy’ was due to be a single in that year too. The track was written for the American Cancer Society, I’m guessing so the band would prosper from advertisements and association with the company, but when it was taken to their executives it was swiftly forgotten about and left in an office for a number of years. Not very nice that that happened, as the track probably deserved more than nothing at all. It’s a peppy tale about the titular character who gets teased by his classmates for being fat. As they all grow older Billy stays somewhat healthy in comparison to those children who once teased him, who ‘one by one’ pass away due to cancer caused by smoking. Billy, being the ‘big man’ inside and out that he is, takes in the kids whose parents have died as his own. It’s a very cheery song but has quite dark lyrics – it works very well.

Got great vocal harmonies shared by Townshend, Roger Daltrey, and John Entwistle that were quite typical in ’60s Who recordings. And Keith Moon goes crazy on the drums and at one point gets a bit lost when carrying out the fills, before somewhat getting into the beat again. Above is the 1996 mix of the track, but the original 1974 release seems to be somewhat faster and in a higher key. I’ll put that down below. By the end of 1968, The Who were in the studio making Tommy and that worked out very well for them.