Tag Archives: the who

#1355: The Who – They Are All in Love

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This marks another instance that an album will be represented for the last time on here too. I’ve covered three tracks from The Who by Numbers before, and the presence of ‘They Are All in Love’ today makes it the fourth and final one. Only a third of the album, if my calculations are correct. But even though I may only find that fraction of the record enjoyable to a degree that I’d want to hear it over and over, I’d listen to the thing the whole way through if someone, anyone, out there were to put it on. The lyrical themes are a bit of a downer. It wasn’t labelled ‘Pete Townshend’s suicide note’ by a critic just for show. But if you just want a good rock album with no constructed concept and strong performances, …by Numbers isn’t a bad shout. Out of all those old ’70s rock bands to exist, you may as well go to The Who if that’s the particular type of record you’re looking for. They don’t do too bad on the concept side either.

I remember really not rating ‘They Are All in Love’ when I went through …by Numbers the first time in about 2012 or so. The waltz timing and the dainty piano among everything else on the album made it stick out like a sore thumb. Made it difficult for me to take it seriously, so I never gave it that much attention. But as the years have gone on and I’ve relistened here and there, I’m at the point now where I’ve realised that the tune is essential to the themes of frustration and irrelevancy that thread through the album. When John Entwistle’s half-joking take on getting into the music business with ‘Success Story’ is finished, we zip back to Pete Townshend’s problems with ‘…in Love’. He finds himself being the outsider to pretty much everything that surrounds him and succumbs to his feelings of irrelevancy as he becomes the old man – at the age of 30 – in the young man’s game of rock and roll. When he writes (and Roger Daltrey sings) “Where do you walk on sunny times” or “Where do you fit in (blows raspberry) magazine”, he’s really asking himself “Where do I etc etc.” As a writer, you’ve got to address the audience in some way, and with the second-person narrative, he does easily. But it makes it the more hard-hitting when he switches to first-person in the final verse with the lines, “Goodbye all you punks, stay young and stay high / Hand me my chequebook and I’ll crawl off to die.” It’s a sucker punch.

So who’s the ‘They’ that are in love as the harmonies so delicately lay out in the choruses? To me, I don’t think it matters. ‘They’ could be anyone. The main implication from the lyric is that while everyone else is in love, Townshend on the other hand, isn’t, with anyone or anything. And no one’s loving him either. A downer, to say the least. And this carries on until the album’s end where he tries to force himself into liking the simple things in life while feeling like rubbish (‘Blue, Red and Grey’) and contemplates who he can really trust in his personal life (‘How Many Friends’) to the point where he flat out states he’s lacking direction (‘In a Hand or a Face’). Might be one of the most overlooked streaks on a Who album, those last four tracks on …by Numbers. So it goes to show the 17-year-old I was in 2012, underneath the unserious-sounding music lay a strong song that was actually very serious in its lyrics. The sprightly piano on here is easily the highlight, brought to you everyone’s go-to session musician Nicky Hopkins. He carries everything with those fingers.

#1339: The Who – Tattoo

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It’s really come to this. The last song to represent The Who Sell Out in this series. It’s been a ride with that one, with a track from that album appearing in the ‘A’ section way back when. ‘Fun’ isn’t a word you’d use to describe a lot of albums by The Who, but if there was one that could be, Sell Out would probably be it. You’ve got the light radio concept throughout, a toe dip into that style of album before Pete Townshend fully went into the deep end for Tommy. Lighthearted songs with topics ranging from the importance of deodorant to baked beans to Scrooge-type characters. And it’s a showcase of the harmonies vocalists Roger Daltrey, Townshend and John Entwistle could execute, which kind of went away as the albums came along. And listening to the studio banter in alternate takes in that Super Deluxe Edition seem to show the bandmembers having a few laughs or so during the sessions. It sounds like a good time. Sell Out‘s still a bit of a overlooked album in the Who discography, but those who know really know.

‘Tattoo’ is the fifth song on The Who Sell Out and a very plainly told story about a boy and his brother who go to the parlor to get some tattoos to prove their manhood. The dad beats one brother, the mum beats the other. There’s no deeper meaning that what’s sung to you in the lyrics. I kind of remember hearing this one for the first time, on this old website called we7.com, back in the summer of 2010. The way Daltrey was singing, the subject matter, the nothing-left-to-interpretation-ness of it all. This was a very unusual song by The Who, very unlike anything you’d expect by them. It all sounded a bit silly to the 15-year-old I was then. Especially that “rooty-toot-toot” ending. Seemed like they were sort of making fun of what they were singing about. I can’t remember when the change happened that I suddenly saw the light, but I must have done because I can firmly say ‘Tattoo’ is one of my favourites on the entire album. The way Daltrey sings it is really a plus because of how un-Daltrey it is. Those descending harmonies by Townshend and Entwistle at the end of the choruses… just beautiful. Glorious stuff. And I feel like a mention to drummer Keith Moon occurs in a lot of Who posts I do on here, but he takes a backseat on ‘Tattoo’, which lets all the melodies really sink in.

So everyone, if there’s a lesson to be learned today, it’s to listen to The Who Sell Out. Myself, I’ve never been into the 2009 reissue / 2021 Super Deluxe Edition which I think use the original mix as it was from 1967. The 1995 Remix/Reissue, which is listed as being released in 1967 on Spotify and the like, was the edition that I listened to first and that I think contains the best mix out of all the re-releases that have been around. I’m sure that’s the version I’ve hyperlinked above, with the 23 tracks on there. It’s a damn shame that whoever split the songs for the remix of on streaming did a bad job, with the radio adverts playing at the beginning of songs rather than the end, because I feel each song would probably have a lot more plays if the alternate was the case. I did go through a period wondering whether I liked ‘Relax’ or not. By the time I was writing the R’s, I didn’t. But now I do again. So I’ll give that a mention. And the alternative version of ‘Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand’ with Al Kooper on organ. Much prefer that to the actual album version, actually. So, yeah. Wave bye to Sell Out, everybody.

#1233: The Who – So Sad About Us

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Another track from The Who’s A Quick One. ‘So Sad About Us’ is a number that I don’t think I paid much attention to when I first heard that album way back in the early 2010s. Other cuts like ‘Boris the Spider’ and ‘See My Way’ were much more to my liking. The latter’s considered to be one of the weaker songs on there, but I’ve always dug it. But at that time, ‘So Sad About Us’ had its own Wikipedia page, so I gathered it must be quite important in some way. According to it, the song’s one of the Who’s most covered songs, with people like The Breeders and The Jam having their own takes on it. It wasn’t until I saw a live performance of the track the Who did (below) maybe only a few years ago that I thought I should maybe give the album version another listen.

Before The Who started getting into making albums with concepts in mind, the music becoming sort of artsy and extravagant as a result, their first two records showcased Pete Townshend’s abilities to write “simple” catchy 3-minute power pop wonders. You think of ‘My Generation’, ‘Substitute’, ‘The Kids Are Alright’. Things of that nature. ‘So Sad…’ falls into that category. It’s a strong performance by the four respective band members, and is more of their straighter numbers by Who standards. The rhythm section is usually the highlight in many a Who song, but I’d say ‘So Sad…’ relies more on the clanging guitar chords and the vocals/harmonies carried out by Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle.

It’s a break-up song, a topic that you rarely ever find in The Who’s catalogue, from the point of view of a narrator who’s upset by the whole situation. No malice is felt toward the other person. There’s no sense of bitterness. Just an honest account of acceptance that time has run out and the relationship is over. The track is two verses, a bridge and a repeat of the first verse surrounded by a memorable refrain of la-la-la’s, but to spice things up a little there’s a key change that occurs nearing the end. Just a general fan of how the song’s executed, to be honest, there’s not much else I can say. Although it’s one of their most covered tracks, I still feel like it’s underappreciated in the grand scheme of things. I’m sure there are a lot of people who don’t know about the song’s existence. But it does, and it’s great.

#1219: The Who – Slip Kid

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Sometime in 2012 when I should have really been focusing on studying for my A-Levels but also going through what I think was a sort of depression at the time, I got round to listening to The Who by Numbers. Wikipedia showed that this was the album that the band came back with after Quadrophenia two years before, and through listening it became clear why the record was named the way it was. It was no rock opera like Tommy or Quadrophenia. There was no overarching theme tying the songs like on …Sell Out. No, this time round was a standard, simple ten-track album brought to you by the four bandmembers, just under 40 minutes, doing what they did best. No sign of pretension to be found.

During the album’s sessions, guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend turned 30. Feeling the pressures of feeling like an old man in the young man’s game of rock and roll and becoming heavily disillusioned with it all, he laid out his feelings in the tracks that would go on to make up …by Numbers. The album begins with ‘Slip Kid’, a warning to the kids who were looking to get into the music business disguised as a track about a young man who has to go to war alongside these older people who have led a long life and are providing this unwanted advice. I’m sure that the whole track is one big metaphor, to be honest. I think the crucial line that really tells what Townshend’s message is in the final lines when Roger Daltrey sings, “You’re sliding down the hill like me” a nod to being “over the hill” which the whole album goes on to delve into for the next half-hour.

The song begins with a loop of handclaps and percussion (cowbell on the left, tom-toms on the right) which persists throughout, with the rest of the band joining in together after a swift count-in by Townshend. Two simultaneous riffs provided by premier session player Nick Hopkins on the piano and Townshend on guitar get things going, before Daltrey gets his gritty vocals. Just in the introduction alone, there’s enough memorable melodies to go around. Daltrey’s tougher vocals contrast with the softer tones of Townshend and John Entwistle’s backing harmonies with fine effect. The latter’s bass line is one to recognise as per usual, particularly how it mirrors the backing vocals during outro. And unusually Keith Moon takes a bit of a backseat on the drums, staying mainly on the hi-hat and snare. Slip Kid’s a very steady number. Doesn’t announce itself with a bang like ‘The Real Me’ or possess the wait of anticipation like ‘Baba O’Riley’, but does the job in its own firm, secure way.

#1169: The Who – See My Way

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Early 2010s I was discovering The Who. What started out as a small interest in watching their music videos on YouTube turned into me downloading a few of their albums and becoming a huge fan overall. Way I remember it, I started with The Who Sell Out onto Quadrophenia, Who’s Next, The Who by Numbers and then Who Are You. Must have been weary about Tommy for some reason, ’cause I didn’t listen to that till much later. But after finishing Who Are You and knowing that it was Keith Moon’s last album on drums and things were never the same after, it made sense to go back in their discography. This is all where the song ‘See My Way’ comes in.

‘See My Way’ is a song on the band’s second album, A Quick One, and is one of the rare, rare, rare occasions where lead singer Roger Daltrey is credited as a songwriter in the band’s list of albums. In fact, it might be the only one. At least with no help from anyone else. And you can sort of tell that it’s not the kind that Pete Townshend would write, or even John Entwistle. You’ll come across simple rhymes like way/day (“way” is rhymed with itself three times in the first verse alone), you/do/true, bad/mad. It goes on that way. Nothing too much to get you thinking like Townshend would usually aim to do with his pen game. Some may find it rather forgettable. But that’s not me. I’ve always got a kick from it.

The track’s message is a bit like The Beatle’s ‘We Can Work It Out’. Just without the “Life is very short for fussing and fighting bit.” Like Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey wants this other person to concede defeat, possibly in an argument or something, it’s not very specific, and as they’re too stubborn to do so, he’s not afraid to cut ties with them and to come back around until they finally admit that they were wrong in the first place. Bit of a selfish tone to it, but it’s set to this galloping rhythm, achieved by replacing some of Keith Moon’s drums with cardboard boxes and a returning melodic phrase (first by vocals, then by horns) that make it all very catchy, indeed. Sounds like Daltrey and Entwistle are singing together on this one too, and I think you hear the latter’s more in the ‘Tried so hard’ sections. So that’s nice too.