Tag Archives: the who

My iPod #435: The Who – Glow Girl

3 Replies

“Glow Girl” closes out the 1995 reissue of The Who Sell Out, The Who’s third album which was originally released in 1967. The song was recorded during 1968, and was planned to be on an album entitled “Who’s for Tennis?” which obviously never came to be. It captures the band at their most poppy phase with jangly guitars and sweet vocal harmonies that last throughout the song, but still manages to contain that rock edge via the swaggering basslines and erratic drum fills.

Despite the light and heartwarming tone the song details the scene where people are getting on a flight which unfortunately crashes shortly after taking off. But after an instrumental break of guitar string scrapes the song comes to the pleasant conclusion in which the “glow girl” is born. To a “Mrs. Walker”, funnily enough. That caught me by surprise when I listened to it for the first time too. Does that mean Pete Townshend just stole bits from this track and “Rael 1” and inserted them into “Tommy”, or did he have that music planned all along? Who knows.

The thing I know is, after more than an hour or so of great music and a few mock adverts, “Glow Girl” with its pleasant overtones and silly mock-Sgt.Pepper locked groove is the perfect way to cap off the “Who Sell Out” listening experience.

My iPod #426: The Who – Girl’s Eyes

Leave a reply

“Girl’s Eyes” is a song recorded during the making of The Who’s third album The Who Sell Out, which went on to be released in 1967. The song did not make it onto the original album’s tracklist. Though it did appear in the extended tracklisting when the album was remastered and remixed years later in 1995. The track is one of the very few Who songs to be written by the ever-eccentric Keith Moon. He couldn’t sing very well, but you’re still able to hear him take lead vocals in the right channel with bassist John Entwistle singing along with him in the left.

After a false start in which someone blows over the top of an open bottle and Moon hurriedly says “Hello” to the listener (maybe to test the microphone or something), the track eventually gets going and is driven by a delightful piano and acoustic guitars, but Moon and Entwistle do their business on their respective instruments too. The track concerns a fangirl who Moon sees at every show the band perform at, but he clearly doesn’t care about her as much as she about them. He wonders if he could have the audacity of hurting this girl if they were ever to meet, though whether this actually happens is not revealed as the lyrics pretty much end there. I also think that Moon couldn’t think of a true ending to the song’s music, as the band improvise an ending where each member eventually gives up playing after a few reiterations of the song’s chord progression.

This song’s a-okay. Moon was always meant for the drums, of course, but this track shows that he could actually write a good tune as well too.

My iPod #307: The Who – Early Morning Cold Taxi

2 Replies

Today’s track is “Early Morning Cold Taxi” by The Who, one that wasn’t released on an album when the band were making music in their heyday. I heard the song when listening to the 1995 Remixed and Remastered version of “The Who Sell Out“, the band’s third album released in 1967.

What the song title actually means is beyond me. I never really think about it that much. Maybe the phrase just fit the melody of the song or whatever. “Cold Taxi” wasn’t written by Pete Townshend, who obviously wrote pretty much everything The Who did, but instead a guy named Dave Langston who was the band’s first roadie. The song is actually credited to both him and lead singer Roger Daltrey, but Daltrey didn’t actually do much. He didn’t write any of it at all really.

But this isn’t a bad thing. “Cold Taxi” is a nice poppy number with, what I think are vocals done by both Daltrey and bassist John Entwistle, the former being in the right side of the ‘stereo field’ (that is how it’s described, right) and the latter on the left. Got great vocal harmonies and a sweet melody, an innocent little ‘ooooh’ bridge section and a few key changes here and there. It’s a nice song.

The song is about three minutes long, and ‘cos of the whole radio concept the album’s supposed to have it is followed by a thirty second Coke jingle that the band actually recorded for the company all those years ago. It does take the momentum out of the track, but it is a rocking advertisement for a drink.

My iPod #303: The Who – Drowned

Leave a reply

For me, “Quadrophenia” was very difficult to absorb initially. At an hour and twenty minutes fit to burst with long instrumental passages on some songs and the whole concept made the listening process very complicated. Or maybe it was me thinking about it too much. Upon further listens I realised that everything you hear is essential to the story throughout the album. You are taken on a journey with the tragic lead character of Jimmy. In “Drowned”, we find him in a desperate state as he contemplates…. drowning himself in the sea. Although, out of the album’s context it is a tribute to Meher Baba who Townshend admired for his spiritual teachings.

“Drowned” is a great track. A roaring vocal take by Daltrey, that rolling piano phrase throughout, that slick musical reference to 5:15 in the middle…… the final jam at the end which seems to carry on forever before fading into a clip of Townshend singing “Sea and Sand” on the beach…. Those are just the little things I can pick out from memory at the moment. But they are the little things that add to the album’s cohesion. I’m blabbering on a bit; I will leave it there.

All in all, another wall of melodious noise and relentless rhythm provided by The Who.

My iPod #290: The Who – Dogs

2 Replies


Behold. A song that sounds like nothing The Who would ever do, made by The Who.

This is “Dogs”. A single released in 1968, and recorded during a period when the group went ‘slightly mad’ according to Pete Townshend.

There’s nothing much I can say to you that would be any different from its entry on Wikipedia. It’s a very English-sounding song. That “beer” chorus reminds me of a sing-along down at a pub or something, and overall it sounds like a very dramatic theme track for two characters in a soap opera.

In comparison to everything else The Who did, “Dogs” is definitely an odd one…..