The music of The Who was in the background of my childhood. Tommy was one of two 8-tracks my dad always had in his beat-up Ford LTD (the other was Jesus Christ Superstar), and I received the double-album for Christmas when I was 11.
Despite that, and the obsession some of my friend’s older siblings had with the band (particularly the album Who’s Next), I didn’t really get into The Who until I first heard (or really listened to) Who By Numbers my junior year in high school. But they didn’t become my favorite band until college.
In the meantime there was Pete Townshend. Empty Glass was released in 1980 at the end of my freshman year in high school, and I was immediately riveted. With the exception of “Cats in the Cupboard” and “And I Moved” it is an almost perfect album and contains some of my favorite songs—”I Am An Animal,” “Jools and Jim,” and “Empty Glass.”
All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes came out the summer before my senior year. When I returned to boarding school in the fall I was hooked—to the great chagrin no doubt of anybody living within earshot of my stereo.
But Twofer Tuesday isn’t about the best songs or even my favorite songs. It features songs that I’ll listen to whenever they come on—no matter where I am or how I feel. They transcend mood and setting. They simply demand to be listened to. And this week’s songs come from two other Townshend albums.
Rough Mix, a collaboration between Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane, was released in the fall of 1977. It’s clear that, with the exception of the title track, Townshend’s songs are very much his own, just as Lane’s belong entirely to him.
“Keep Me Turning” immediately improves my mood whenever it comes on and I’m instantly immersed in its world.
And then there’s “Zelda,” an obscure recording from Townshend’s 1983 compilation, Scoop. The tracks are mostly demos recorded in his home studio from 1965 to 1982 that eventually made their way, in sometimes drastically altered form, to Who albums. Townshend wrote and arranged all of them (with the exception of Piano: Tipperary by Jack Judge) and he played all of the instruments. Some, like “Zelda,” are one-offs. It’s an odd song and I can’t even explain why I like it so much. It’s catchy and cynical, mean and aggressive. Somehow all of it— the frantic synthesized strings, the simple and kind of weird bass line that comes at the beginning of the second verse, the off rhymes—works and makes it a must-listen for me.
Bonus track: Ronnie Lane’s “Annie”
I love the sweet melancholy of this song.
Pete Townshend