One Of The Two Covers Of "Psychoderelict" (1993)

Pete Townshend’s relationship with the music industry was always defined by a sort of unresolved tension. His one dream project (Lifehouse) clearly spelt that he wanted something from music and from listeners that was not to be. And that tension began pouring into songs by the point “The Who By Numbers” was issued. The jabs were to become full body blows in solo songs like “Jools & Jim”. And the final solo album that he was to release examined the way artists were at the mercy of unscrupulous managers and press agents as thoroughly as only a lifelong insider could.

Named “Psychoderelict”, the disc came out in 1993 and many experts touted it as one of the comebacks of the decade. But it was to perform ingloriously in the charts, and if we leave aside the “Lifehouse Chronicles” boxed set and some compilations (including a “Best Of” package and another title in the “Scoop” series), Pete was to issue no more original material ever again.

Psychoderelict was a conceptual work that took the shape of a CD drama. The story revolved around a ‘60s s musician named Ray High who ended up cocooning himself as the years went by, much to the chagrin of his ruthless manager Rastus Knight. He was desperate to spur Ray into action, and a music journalist named Ruth Streeting devised a way to revive Ray’s career. This involved the creation of a sex scandal that effectively put the name of Ray in everybody’s lips again.

The CD is made up of songs interspersed with dialogue, and the story is completely understandable (and even funny). Ray High (whose name was a direct homage to Ray Davies and Nick Lowe) is entirely convincing as he rallies against the industry and the press, but the true stars are Ruth and Rastus. They are truly two villains you will love to hate. They are hardnosed and truly mercenary. They are also entirely tangible, and the words they speak to each other must have been spoken a billion times over the fates of artists everywhere. At around the time the disc was issued, Pete told Keith Moon’s biographer Tony Fletcher that the music industry “feeds on the corpses of artists”. By that yardstick, Ruth and Rastus come across as the most accomplished undertakers you are liable to ever come across.

The original CD has 21 tracks, including dialogue introductions and a series of instrumentals that represent Ray’s unrealized “Gridlife” project (yes, a completely undisguised “Lifehouse”). A lot of listeners and critics ferociously voiced their dislike for these “peripheral” cuts, and a music-only CD was eventually issued. It had 15 tracks, and it fared no better than the “full” piece in the end. It is also the one edition of the album that is more readily available today.

It is hard not to think about what would have happened if a music-only release of the album had been issued to begin with. Because I consider the union of the music and the lyrics found here as the most harmonious and effective of any solo album of Pete’s. From the autobiographical “English Boy”, to compositions like “Outlive The Dinosaur” and the unavoidable “Now & Then” – songs about old age intoned with a heart that remains evergreen in his capacity to feel joy and wonder at life – the album hits all the heights that it should hit. The press gets a lot of stick (“Let’s Get Pretentious”, “Don’t Try To Make Me Real”), and songs like “Fake It” and “I Am Afraid” insinuate that the demons that haunted Pete in albums like “All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes” did never go away.

That is pure hindsight, of course. Pete believed in pushing boundaries and transcending limits. He did it all through his career. But indifference can take the steam out of anybody. And “Psychoderelict” signalized the instant when he had enough of trying to satisfy an industry that satisfied him in the slightest. He was speaking to fans directly, and the album’s closing lines (spoken by Ray) “What happened to all that lovely hippie shit” are pronounced so categorically that any person who was lucky enough to grow up in the ‘60s and ‘70s is bound to hang his head in sorrow a little. That’s no negative assessment on the album. Rather, the album offers a negative assessment on the way that music has (un)developed itself. And if it is the final solo album by one of music’s most accomplished critics, so be it. He said all there was to say already, and he did it brilliantly enough. More words would only dilute the message now.

Rating: 8/10

Don’t forget to read the introduction to this review.

Pete wrote 20 songs for this musical, 11 of which are included on this album. Some were released as B-sides, too. The singles from the CD were going to be “A Friend Is A Friend” (a song that does not sound like a Townshend composition at all – maybe that was the reason why it was a single) and the excellent set opener, “I Won’t Run Anymore”. Sung by Pete (as Hogarth) and Deborah Conway, the song details the protagonist’s initial encounter with the lumbering giant, and his determination to be as courageous as an adult would be and face the situation instead of fleeing.

The song is immediately followed by “Over The Top”, my personal favorite of the two songs in which John Lee Hooker takes the lead. The other is “I Eat Heavy Metal”, and I am certain most of you will actually like it best than “Over The Top” as it treads bluesier territory, hence Hooker is more at home. In any case, John Lee Hooker as the Iron Man was the best casting decision of the whole disc.

For its part, Simon Townshend tackles “Man Machines”, a brief passage that deals with the same theory that movies like “Terminator” have popularized – we come up with machines to fight our wars for us, and in the end they will nab us.

The song leads into the first Who tune, “Dig”. Roger fills in as Hogarth’s father (no doubt he got an added thrill for lecturing Pete on the song), and the song gave everybody renewed faith on the Who. But the band was not going to record any new tracks after a lackluster cover of Elton John’s “Saturday’s Night Alright For Fighting”. The next recordings would already take place after Entwistle had passed away.

“A Friend Is A Friend” follows “Dig”, and that is followed by “I Eat Heavy Metal” in turn. The songs deal with Hogarth’s betrayal of the Iron Man and their eventual reconciliation.

That is where the first part of the disc ends. The second side is heralded by the super-charged “All Shall Be Well”, the best song in terms of taking advantage of the large cast that was assembled. It would have been a perfect third single from the album, and I dare say it also would have been a more successful one that the two that were actually issued.

Nina Simone’s character (The Space Dragon, a being that threatens to engulf the whole Earth) is introduced next, and her song (“Fast Food”) is nowhere as humorous as Hooker’s contributions. Two ballads are placed either side of this song, “Was There Life” and “A Fool Says”, some of the most characteristic Townshend songs on the whole disc. Specially “Was There Life”. And the fact he sings it almost without involvement from other cast members might go some way into explaining why it recalls past glories, only with a more polished sound.

The last segment of the disc includes the confrontation between the Iron Man and The Space Dragon (”Fire”, the lackluster cover by The Who), and the forced finale, “New Life”. As I said on the first part, don’t look for an open ending a la Tommy because you will walk out of it utterly disenchanted.

Critical reaction to this record was mostly negative, and sales were not good. In the same way bit players were to violate the integrity of The Who in the 1989 tour, it was said that the cast obscured Pete and that was the reason he could never really drive any point home. It was also said that the material offered little insight into who Pete really was, owing to it being an adaptation, and that the songs: A) Dealt with issues Pete had already touched upon best with The Who or on his own, and B) Put him face to face with themes that had nothing to do with him.

Certainly, as far as growing up went he had studied that ever since the early days, and through compositions that had a bigger relevance to him like “Pictures of Lily” or “Tattoo” – hence, songs that he could infuse with his own sense of humor.

And the narrative songs like “I Eat Heavy Metal” and “Fast Food” could have been penned by just anybody. Pete said at the point he felt as if he had written himself out of ideas. The thing is, the change of scene just did not deliver.

The album was to eventually become a Broadway show, right after Tommy’s run there captivated everybody in show-biz and landed Pete a Tony award. Again – it met with little enthusiasm, and it was shortly cancelled.

Finally, an animated movie was issued in 1999 by Warner, retitled “The Iron Giant” so as to avoid any confusion with the Marvel superheroe. The movie received rave reviews but it was marketed abysmally. Pete was credited as an executive producer.

All of the above makes the Iron Man seem a bit like a true hole in Pete’s safety net, doesn’t it? The album certainly marked the moment he stopped having hits, and the instant he turned back to the Who. In the same way that being liberated from the band was to free him creatively in the early ‘80s, becoming involved with them again seemed to occupy his every thought once more. Their subsequent reunions were to come under a barrage of criticism, and the one and only reason The Iron Man is remembered now is because it was the first step towards the reconstruction of the Who. Musically, no single cut has gone down, and the same was to apply to Pete’s final solo disc, “Psychoderelict”. It was time to become the Godfather again. Only that young punks wouldn’t be that receptive this time around.

Rating: 6/10

"The Iron Man" (1989) Was A Musical That Ended Reuniting Pete Townshend With The Who

When Tommy was being recorded, there was a big issue: whether or not to use outside musicians to fill in all the different roles. The Who finally decided not to, and it was the right choice – the whole opera would have escalated otherwise, and replicating it onstage would have been impossible without dazzling logistics. The legendary performances that we can listen to today in albums like Live At The Isle of Wight and the Woodstock soundtrack would never have been. And the sanitized performances that we have as part of boxed sets like Join Together just put a fine point on it all.

However, knowing that Tommy was once considered as a multitudinous project is vital, as it shows that big conceptual schemes in terms of participants had been lodged on Pete’s brain for a long time. He finally had a chance to let that come to fruition in 1989 with the musical “The Iron Man”.

The CD marked the first time Pete had adapted somebody else’s work, as the opera was based on the child’s tale by poet laureate Ted Hughes. Townshend invited musicians from all over the specter to lend their talents, and these ranged from blues legend John Lee Hooker and jazz stalwart Nina Simone to vocalists like Chyna and Australian rocker Deborah Conway. Likewise, he drafted his younger brother Simon and old-time associate Billy Nicholls to sing backup. But most importantly (and tellingly in the long run) was that the Who guested on two tracks, the excellent “Dig” and the ineffective cover of “Fire” by the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (a song Pete had produced in the 60s and taken all the way to number one).

The reunion with the Who was most tellingly because Pete (who had resisted touring with his former compadres for so long) was to finally abdicate and agree to a massive tour of arenas backed by a large ensemble band including percussionists, vocalists and someone else playing electric guitar – Pete was to play mostly acoustic on the “quiet” side of the stage, shielded from the wall of sound. These performances were to result on the live “Join Together” boxed set, a much-reviled collection of live songs. In a certain sense, Pete and the guys had the right to try something different. They had never toured with such a band before, so they had a good excuse. Money also factored heavily at that time, but I already discussed that here.

It was necessary to take the time to explain all that because in the end The Iron Man was to be remembered as nothing but the album that reconciled Pete Townshend with The Who, and as the album that turned the band into an active unit once again as far as performing went.

Now, to start analyzing The Iron Man and leave aside the historical transcendence the disc was to have for the Who (and whether or not that reunion actually did them a favor or a disservice) many ask themselves the question of whether the resulting album is a sanitized piece akin to the resurrected Tommy, or something that could challenge and elicit as much as the blind messiah did in his glory days.

I am afraid that those who approach the album like that are already unfocused. The Iron Man was a story for children. Tommy was radical because it dealt with subjects that were as controversial then as they would be now (child abuse, torturing those who are defenseless, false religions and charlatans…) The Iron Man was a fable about growing up. That made it a natural choice for Pete. This was not to be a new Tommy. It never was intended as one.

Continue to Part 2: the songs on the album analyzed, and its eventual transition into a Broadway piece.

This is the second part of the review. Learn about the context the album is circumscribed in and the first four tracks here.

“Exquisitely Bored” is the fifth song on the album. It is one of the two direct analyses on fame and stardom, the other being (obviously enough) “Stardom In Acton”. “Exquisitely Bored” is Pete’s lyrical take on a theme assayed by The Eagles not long before: life in the “Hotel California”. The message is basically the same, although in “Hotel California” it is implied that no-one can get out, whereas Pete’s song seems to be saying that the ennui is a true choice, that it is comforting, and that “there are good times walking in Laguna…” before finishing the excellent chorus with the line “but it rains in my heart”. One is tempted to ask the question first posed by Creedence Clearwater Revival there and then, namely “Who will stop the rain?”.

The fact is that things don’t look too sunny either when we talk about the London scene. As described by the song “Stardom In Acton”, local success seems every bit as vitiated, and also more transfiguring in the long run. The one song that describes all the vices you can imagine is this one, not “Exquisitely Bored” – “want my stash, want my cash, want omnipotence”, “the long cigarette full of hash”, “don’t admire anonymity”… It seems that making it in your hometown is the most dizzying event that could ever occur. It probably has to do with the fact you can then look down your nose at those who put down your aspirations all your life, and snort “I made it!” in their very faces.

Communication is certainly another big issue for those who succeed in show biz, as they only talk in demands from a certain point onwards. They also lose the human touch by communicating with people at the farthest distance that they can. Now that has become the norm, of course – the Internet makes it easy and (to a certain point) even acceptable. But back then, stars that isolated themselves until they became utter recluses in places like California (such as Steve McQueen) were common fare. The song “Communication” tackles such topics, and the conclusion is that people is unable to express anything, but relationship somehow proceed without hesitation, in spite (or maybe because) of this.

A song that is a true lyrical tour de force is “Uniforms”. The music is also ear-catching, with a bumpy organ stealing the show. The song (in which each word is rhymed from line to line) spells Pete’s vantage point on identity so clearly that I can but imagine him slumping to the ground after writing it and exclaiming “There! At last! I’ve said it all!”. He sings “In uniform I feel like a king”, but the ending is ineluctable “God knows, I need new clothes”.

The final tracks include “North Country Girl” (yes, the traditional tune that Dylan immortalized, only that there are some lyrical changes that set a sort of apocalyptical atmosphere in Pete’s version), and the most autobiographical composition Pete ever penned: “Somebody Saved Me”. The song details his years as an art student, and a relationship that marked him for life. Had he not been luckier, he might have killed himself altogether. In the end, he seems to conclude that the only kind of guardian angel he has ever known is his music. Note that there is a also a phenomenal version of this song by The Who which has been issued on the remastered “Face Dances” CD.

The final song is the highly-successful “Slit Skirts”, and now I am pronouncing it the millimetrical flipside to “My Generation”. While the Who’s early classic was derisive about growing old, in “Slit Skirts” Pete can do nothing but lament that life as turned “awful c-c-cold”. That is because “no one respects the flame quite like the fool that has been burned”. The song has a build-up worthy of a textbook or two, and when Pete sings “Can’t pretend that growing older doesn’t hurt” it is equally soothing as it is devastating. It is soothing because it makes evident that Pete is one of us, and always will be. He is not superhuman. But it is devastating for the pain in his voice, and the fretful solo that he plays at the end just nails the thought hard enough to ever be removed from your mind.

This album culminates the first stage of Pete’s solo career. He was to release his first Scoop shortly, and that disc has always stood to me as the key unlocking his Who-free solo days. No more would he listen to Roger complaining “That is a great album the Who has missed” when he issued a solo disc. Pete was to become liberated from something that had grown onerous, something that had made Pete hurt himself and all he loved. “In uniform I’m up on a throne”, he sang here. What he didn’t say was that such a throne destroyed his back, and the ability to carry anything on it. A break was the sane thing to do. Life went on for everybody, but the legacy of the Who was just too voluminous to be shaken for too long.

Rating: 9.5/10

"All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes" Is My Favorite Solo Record By Pete Townshend. The Album Was Released In 1982, After The Acclaimed "Empty Glass" Had Ignited Townshend's Career.

“All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes” was issued in the aftermath of Pete’s near-fatal depression of 1980-81. Keith Moon was dead, Kit Lambert was gone, and Pete was not reaching out to the public the way he once did. The faith on his band was broken, he had already launched a promising solo career. His marriage was in shambles (he was living away from his wife and children), and he was a million pounds in debt.

You must understand that Pete was never a strong person. He always had enormous difficulty coming to grips with who he was, and the way others saw him was instrumental to Townshend. When others perceived there was a problem, when they could see behind his blue eyes, that was the time he also noticed that he had a problem. And like most people who face alcoholic issues, he used to go to extremes all the time. He once remarked he even used to get suicidal about people he didn’t know at all if rebuffed.

During this time, virtually everybody scolded him. Roger Daltrey almost had it with Pete one night on stage, and even his best friend Richard Barnes (he who had suggested the name of the band all those years ago) cornered Townshend and called him “pathetic”. Pete’s response? “It’s alright. Why should Keith have all the glory?”

Finally, during a night out at the Club For Heroes he took heroin, overdosed and had to be rushed to ER. It transpired his heart had stopped beating for a while. A mere second later would have been fatal.

The turning point came shortly afterwards when wife Karen asked him “Why don’t you come over again and we try to work it out?”. That gave him the resolve to start pushing once more.

His 1982 record captures all of the above, and it shows that sometimes there is not a difference between being shattered, being broken and being fragmented. The only valid difference lies in being there or not being there at all.

“All The Best Cowboys…” is experimental in every sense. The first track has Pete reciting instead of singing. “Stop Hurting People” is actually an open letter for reconciliation he had written to Karen. The song, dealing with a love that died and had to be born again was the one way to start the record. “People, stop hurting people”, he pleads. And we all can picture him looking into the eyes of his wife as he does so, his gaunt reflection in her eyes, the words “without your love there is no flame” hammering and hammering until they are unleashed into song.

That composition was the one way to set the record spinning. And “The Sea Refuses No River” was the only possible continuation. As you know, Pete loves water. He calls it “the eternal equalizer”. And this song is named after his family’s motto. “The Sea Refuses No River” deals with power and the consequent distortion that it brings about. In the end, Pete sings “The sea refuses no river/and the river is where I am”. A big heart won’t refuse a small one. And that is because a really big heart is only filled to the brim with something small.

The first two tracks evidence the wordiness of the record. You might like that or not. The fact is that it makes the disc noticeable like nothing else within Pete’s oeuvre. And in terms of musical structures, Pete also had a lot to try out now that the time was right for breaking out of himself, and try to see who he was from afar, but (for the first time) through his own eyes. He was not going to base his own perception on other eyes. He was determined to believe in his own vision, once and for all. Music was going to help break the cocoon.

And after the lovely ”Prelude” (a short piano delicatessen in which Pete ends lamenting “why can’t I see a change/before I say goodbye”) Pete comes with the adventuresome “Face Dances Part 2”. Written in an offbeat signature (5/3), the song discusses attractiveness when the heart is beginning to stray a little and the mind is beginning to warp a lot. While it is true that there is beauty in everything, there is also an everything in beauty. We are attracted to things that will hurt us. That is, if we sense a person or a concept will do us no wrong along with the good, then we can’t bring ourselves to love it at all. We can only sympathize with the person or concept. Love implies a latent danger, or something to repudiate at the very least. If that is absent, if there are no hurdles along the way there is no point in setting off. It happens with everything. Even with fame. And if someone has any doubts, the next track (”Exquisitely Bored”) is bound to drive the point home.

Read the second part of this review: the remaining songs on “All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes” analyzed.

The Album That Proved Pete Townshend Could Do It His Own Way And Succeed - It Was Named "Empty Glass" And It Came Out In 1980.

After the critical acclaim of the discs “Who Came First” and “Rough Mix” and the state The Who was in following the death of Keith Moon, the way was paved for Pete to launch his solo career in earnest. He was to finally do so in 1980, with an album for which he saved the first ten good songs he had written (instead of keeping them for The Who as he would have done before). The record was to receive excellent reviews and sell in good enough numbers as to prove that the brain of The Who also had a lot of muscle.

The one hit of the record was “Let My Love Open The Door”, yet another “love” song that was actually inspired by Meher Baba and his teachings. There were many musicians throughout history renowned for being Baba lovers, but Pete might as well be the most popular to the public at large. It was the same love that inspired the whole “Tommy” album, and on “Empty Glass” it also resulted in the sardonic “Keep On Working”. Pete has always had an eye for touching what he loves from another angle without actually tarnishing it. He knows how to throw shadows at something without hiding it all from sight, but rather emphasizing the bits that remain uncovered until they also tell you about what was darkened. In other words: Pete knows how to suggest and insinuate a lot.

Well, mostly. The songs “And I Moved” and “Rough Boys” insinuated too much to some, and they were to eventually result in tabloid headlines reading “I am a woman” and “My Gay Secret”. Later on, Pete was to explain that those two songs were actually: A) A take on macho culture where the character realizes how to frighten said individuals by pretending to be gay (“Rough Boys”), and B) A song written for a woman, in which he was to left the gender unchanged when he sang it (“And I Moved”).

The other great song on the album is “A Little Is Enough”. It has a great synthesizer part, and Pete never conveyed how much the sea and the water mean to him so graciously before or after. Not even in the whole “White City” movie did he transmit that so accurately, and the movie is bursting with water shots from back to front.

Elsewhere, “I Am An Animal” is an interesting take on evolution (His? Artists? Everybody?) and “Jools & Jim” finds him in full combative mode, as he lashes at some journalists that said the world was better off without Keith Moon. They went as far as to compare The Who’s unique drummer with Sid Vicious. They were looking for trouble, if you ask me.

On a personal note, the two tracks that I don’t enjoy are “Cat’s In The Cupboard” (far too repetitive) and “Gonna Get You”, also a repetitive number yet sporadically contagious in its call-and-response lyrics. But only sporadically.

So, Pete career had started for good. Even when the album was successful (because it truly was), everybody noticed that he was playing by his own set of rules. The Who were The Who. Pete was Pete, and he proved he could reach out to fans and non-fans at the same time. This debut is the most accessible solo disc he was to ever release, and also the purest. I like the second one best (“All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes”, 1982) but I couldn’t recommend that one over “Empty Glass” to anybody. Both are indispensable, though. Just pick them up in order to have a smoother time.

Rating: 8/10

(Read the introduction to this album here.)

Doing a quick recap, Ronnie Lane handled the folksy bits on this record whereas the Birdman doled out the rock numbers. It is Pete the one to start it all with the delirious sketch “My Baby Gives It Away”. He knows he is singing utter piffle, and he sings it so brazenly and the accompaniment is so joyous and upbeat that it is not as Dave Marsh says: Pete is not sounding as if he were having fun. He is having the time of his life in a studio in a long, long time. The song goes from silliness to silliness set to the steady beat of Charlie Watts and acoustic guitars that are strummed as if they were the cue for the listener to smile.

Ronnie takes the lead and supplies “Nowhere To Run” and “Annie”, with the instrumental title track sandwiched in between. I do like “Nowhere To Run” – its melody is good, but the lyrics are a bit hazy and it is tricky relating to them. “Annie”, on the other hand, is one of these songs about lost love that are impinged with so much sensibility that the melody (and words) paint concrete images into just anybody, young or old.

Back to Pete again. Now, I am going to declare “Keep Me Turning” as the greatest forgotten gem in his catalog. Period. It is a spiritual song. It is a love song. It is a song about redemption. It is the one song where he sincerely laughs at his own seriousness and pomp. And the way he sings “Won’t you leave me till the very last” cannot be described. The only delivery I have listened to elsewhere which is close in tender power is Roy Orbison’s bit on the Traveling Wilbury’s “Handle With Care”.

Once this truly high point is reached, Ronnie offers the honky tonk of “Catmelody” (with Charlie Watts behind the kit again), and then Pete counterbalances it with the goofy/intriguing/lovable “Misunderstood”. Pete says he wrote it with a Johnny Rotten-like character in mind, but if someone fits the description 100 % that’s him. The song is also my favorite example of his “sly” style of singing.

The final cuts are “April’s Fool” (a countrified song that seems unfinished but that has a nice slide solo at the end), the previously-described “Street In The City” and “Heart To Hang Onto”, and the cover of “Till The Rivers All Run Dry” in which Billy Nicholls and John Entwistle are on backing vocals along with everybody else.

If you know me, you know I am very reticent to rank albums higher than 8. This one, though, is so consistent and charming that it just has a hold on me. It also had a hold on anybody who listened to it back then. While “Who Came First” had Pete timidly breaking out of The Who’s shadow and proving a solo career was viable, “Rough Mix” showed us all that a solo career was not only to be viable but also enjoyable and fulfilling. This album spelled the last letter of the writing on the wall. Pete had held for as long as he could. It was time to move on.

Rating: 9/10

Rough Mix (A Collaboration Between Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane) Stole The Accolade Of Best Album Released In 1977. Pistols, Clash & Costello Eat Your Hearts Out!

Produced by Glyn Johns and issued in 1977, this collaboration between Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane was voted album by the year by Rolling Stone. Wenner’s gang were not the only ones dazzled by it. Pete’s record company gave the album little promotion, certain that he was to leave and form a supergroup with Lane. The Who had just signed a new contract, and the album did nothing but highlight how much Pete needed a change of scene.

Rough Mix is blistering in terms of sidemen: Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts, Boz Burrell, Ian Stewart… Pete could have snapped his fingers and have a new band within seconds. And it would have been a more fulfilling band than The Who to him at that point for certain.

The album itself is not really a collaboration in the sense of the two former mod champions sitting down and writing an album. (“What?! And split the royalties?!” Pete joked to Ronnie at the time). Rather, Ronnie had some songs, Pete had some songs and together they came up with “Rough Mix”. They only sing together in the penultimate track, “Heart To Hang On To”. They also shared a writing credit for the title track, an instrumental were Clapton and Rabbit Bundrick have their way.

There are no videos of Pete and Ronnie playing together. There is, however, this one of Eddie Vedder singing with Pete in 1999. They mix up the lyrics, and Vedder is a bit off. But it is the best that I could find for you:

To understand the way “Rough Mix” is conformed, we can use this nice little equation:

(Ronnie = Folk) + (Pete = Rock) = Rough Mix

I couldn’t explain it in crisper terms, really. The two genres are interspersed, and aside from the orchestrated experiment of Pete named “Street In The City” and “Catmelody”, (a honky-tonky swagger assembled by Ronnie) they mostly stick to this formula.

Ron’s songs are “Nowhere To Run”, “Annie”, “Catmelody” and “April’s Fool”. Pete fills is side of the plate with “My Baby Gives It Away”, “Keep Me Turning”, “Misunderstood”, “Street In The City” and “Heart To Hang Onto”. The album is tailed by a cover of “Till The Rivers All Run Dry” where everybody gets together and sings along.

Part 2: The Different Songs On The Album Described & Discussed.

Read the first part of this review here.

I haven’t talked a lot about the tracks that were contributed by fellow musicians yet. “Evolution” is Ronnie Lane’s all-acoustic take on a Small Faces track named “The Stone”, with him playing rhythm and Pete leading the way. For its part, “Forever’s Not Time At All” comprises mostly Billy Nicholls’ vocals and Caleb Quaye’s instrumentation – he handles bass, drums and guitars. “Forever’s Not Time At All”, incidentally, was a phrase inspired by Meher Baba. And the same applies to the coda of “Let’s See Action”, as “The Nothing & The Everything” was one of Baba’s teachings.

As far as Pete’s original compositions go, we have “Time Is Passing”, yet another song from the aborted Lifehouse project and one that did not surface as a Who recording until the remastered “Odds & Sods” saw release in 1999. A note on the Who’s version on that disc: what you listen to is only half the song. The other half (including a French horn and the full bass part) are missing, although the exactly opposite version of the song does exist, featuring the missing instruments and lacking the other ones. Some bootlegger even managed to combine the two mixes and come up with the “definitive” version of “Time Is Passing” by the Shepherd Bush’s combo.

The other original track is “Sheraton Gibson” a small ditty about hitting the road. Whether Pete alludes to touring or striking down the pathway of spiritual enlightenment is up to each listener…

Finally, we have Pete’s own adaptation of Baba’s Prayer. That is often referred to as “The Master’s Prayer” or “The Universal Prayer”. I am not a religious person but I do understand and respect the value it has for believers. At a certain point in the song, though, a synthesizer starts wobbling along and it is incredibly distracting. Just imagine what would happen to “See Me, Feel Me” or any major Tommy track if an annoying synth came in halfway and you will get the idea quite well. Actually, you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to imagine anything since the Tommy soundtrack (1975) was drowned in a heavy synthesized tide.

It is Parvardigar the one track that gives the album on the whole a marked religious touch. If you were to take it off the record, the album would resemble more a mere work inspired by faith. These are different things. “Tommy” was not a religious album in any sense, and the cult the nominal character formed at the end was that – a cult. A cult and a religion are entirely divergent entities. But “Tommy” was inspired by faith – “faith in something bigger”, if we were to quote Pete himself. The same goes as far as “Who Came First” is concerned. It is a work of love, made by different people who sing about what brings harmony to them without proselytizing.

The presence of “Parvardigar” certainly tips the scales a little. But I frankly don’t think it will get in the way. And just for the record, I never skip the track when listening to the CD. I think that if you are listening to songs inspired by something, giving that something a direct try is the natural thing to do. And I also think this album would be treasured the most by the people who adore Tommy. That is 90 % of the ones who listen to The Who (as you know, I am with the remaining 10 %). Since the message of “Who Came First” is fortified by people who have been Baba Lovers for longer than Townshend was, you do have a more focused sight of the equilibrium he probably wanted to transmit the first time around.

Rating:

Original album: 6/10
Remastered CD (w/bonus tracks): 7/10

Pete Townshend As Depicted On The Cover Of His First Solo Record, "Who Came First" (1972)

Pete Townshend’s love for Indian Avatar Meher Baba produced the critically-acclaimed Tommy album in 1969, but there was more to it. As a “Baba Lover”, Townshend was involved with other devotees in the production and internal release of albums that included not only music but also poetry readings. Those were to fall into the hands of bootleggers and be repackaged before too long, and that was the reason Pete’s record company offered him the chance to assemble an official disc. That disc was to be named “Who Came First”, it was issued in 1972, and it was to be Pete’s first release outside of The Who.

As I explained in the general introduction to Pete’s music, “Who Came First” was not really a “solo” album as a literal host contributed to the record. Caleb Quaye, Ronnie Lane and Billy Nicholls lent their interpretative skills to three of the nine tracks that were featured on “Who Came First”, and the album also included a painting by Mike McInnerney (he who had illustrated “Tommy”). Lyrics were likewise composed by other Baba lovers, with both McInnerney’s wife and Maud Kelly having writing credits of their own.

Pete provided some Who demos, a few original numbers and an adaptation of Baba’s Universal Prayer (“Parvardigar”). He also tackled Jim Reeves’ “There’s An Heartache Following Me”, as it was one of Baba’s favorite Western songs. The other was “Begin The Beguine”, and Pete did also cover it on another of those tribute albums. It didn’t make it into “Who Came First”, though.

The Who demos included “Pure & Easy” and “Let’s See Action”. The inclusion of “Pure & Easy” was phenomenal if only because a Who version was not issued until the “Odds & Sods” album almost 5 years later. The song was the genesis of the whole “Lifehouse” project, and its omission on the “Who’s Next” disc has always been mourned. As Dave Marsh said, it wouldn’t have “saved” the album itself. Rather, it would have “perfected” it.

“Let’s See Action” was one of the “Lifehouse” leftovers that was released as a single, with the others being “Join Together” and “Relay”. Pete’s own demo doubles the running time, and it is one of these songs that were clearly meant to be sung by Roger. Who could sing a call to arms better than him, after all?

That is the main difference between the Who’s frontman and the band’s composer. As part of the general introduction I penned yesterday I made a point of Roger being a ballsier performer, while Pete takes a more delicate approach. You can understand it if you see it in these terms: Roger is the kind of guy who fights his way out of trouble. Pete is the fellow who talks his way out if it. Pete has a completely sly way of singing. His lyrics are witty, and so is the way he sings them. You can sample that marvelously on a song from his next record, the one he issued in 1977 with Ronnie Lane. The song is called “Misunderstood”, and it has a charm that ensnares just anybody.

That wit and that charm are also in evidence on the CD rerelease of “Who Came First”. Six songs have been added, and they are all tunes by Pete – his demo of “The Seeker” and five original compositions (two of which are instrumental cuts).

Such a wealth of bonus material definitely makes it resemble more of a Townshend solo album. And his witty delivery sparkles on “Sleeping Dog”, a song in which he gives unlimited faith a wry twist as he shows that even devotion has some physical limitations after all. Another of the new tracks is “Day Of Silence”, a very serene composition on the Avatar who led a life of silence in pursuit of the word of all words. It is the one composition of Pete’s that truly made me interested in Meher Baba. Although it didn’t make a believer out of me, I was spurred on to do some basic research.

(Continue to Part 2)