‘Lifehouse’: How an ambitious rock opera nearly broke up The Who
Beyond the excesses demanded of classic rock stars in the 1960s and ’70s, The Who were serious about their craft. Keith Moon may have enjoyed loading his bass drum with explosives, but talent of such enduring influence doesn’t come about when one sits on one’s hands. As the London-based British Invasion group inched towards the 1970s, their output became increasingly complex and pioneering, with a firm shoulder against the musical vanguard.
The Who’s fourth album, Tommy, arrived in May 1969 and was seen as a marked change of pace for the band. An ambitious double disc release, Tommy was the first and most cherished of The Who’s famous rock operas, with a concept so tight and detailed one could adapt it across multiple media. In 1971, the project was adapted into a Seattle Opera production, followed by Ken Russel’s movie adaptation in 1975. In 1992, the concept was also used for a Broadway musical.
“The package I hope is going to be called Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy,” Pete Townshend said of his new concept in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1968. “It’s a story about a kid that’s born deaf, dumb and blind and what happens to him throughout his life … But what it’s really all about is the fact that … he’s seeing things basically as vibrations which we translate as music. That’s really what we want to do: create this feeling that when you listen to the music, you can actually become aware of the boy and aware of what he is all about because we are creating him as we play.”
Townshend initially laid out the convoluted plot across 11 pages of notes that would inform and offer structure to subsequent recording sessions and eventual visual adaptations. Despite the complexity of the project, it was a labour of love for the creatively fertile mind of a 23-year-old Townshend. The album was warmly received upon its release and penetrated the top ten in the US and the UK, buoyed by its lead single, ‘Pinball Wizard’.
Encouraged by the success of the multimedia project, Townshend led The Who towards a follow-up rock opera without coming up for air. The proposed rock opera was titled Lifehouse and would be based on Townshend’s experiences on the Tommy tour of 1969-70. Initially, Townshend was inspired by the Sufi musician Inayat Khan, who believed that there was a universal note of music, “a keynote of the chord to which we all belong”.
The guitarist and songwriter wanted to reflect the band-audience connection by personalising the music included in the project. Townshend was to rig his newly acquired VCS3 and ARP synthesisers and a four-channel quadraphonic PA system to build a machine that could generate personal music themes written from computer-collated biographical data. These thematic components would then be joined to form a “universal chord,” as Townshend put it.
Accompanying this audacious compositional idea was a new narrative structure set in science fiction. “The essence of the storyline was a kind of futuristic scene,” Townshend explained in the liner notes for Who’s Next. “It’s a fantasy set at a time when rock ‘n’ roll didn’t exist. The world was completely collapsing, and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes.
“In a way, they lived as if they were in television programmes. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who’d kept rock ‘n’ roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle.”
The Who planned to commandeer the Young Vic theatre for an extended run of intimate gigs in which they could engage with the live audience. Inviting fans to the stage to find a role within the music and eventual multimedia package. As the concerts gained strength, these shows would be filmed to capture the true spirit of a Who concert. The final product would blend scripted elements with the raw authenticity of live performances, creating a storyline that evolved with the music.
You would be forgiven for not fully understanding the scope of Townshend’s Lifehouse idea. This proposed live-recorded concept album appeared only fully formed in Townshend’s mind, a mind that soon entered a breakdown as it obsessed over the idea and feuded with those of dubious bandmates and the manager Kit Lambert.
With the success of Tommy, The Who were granted financial freedom and humoured Townshend’s plan with a trio of live shows at the Young Vic. Much to the band’s consternation, the audiences weren’t interested in the interactive concept or being part of the new album; they had come to hear ‘My Generation’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’.
After the third show at the Young Vic, Townshend finally joined his bandmates in disillusionment and pulled the plug on the project. “It was a disaster,” Townshend reflected. “The fatal flaw…was getting obsessed with trying to make a fantasy a reality rather than letting the film speak for itself.”
As well as pushing Townshend to the brink of mental breakdown, Lifehouse violently embittered intra-band relations. In Anyway Anyhow Anywhere – The Complete Chronicle of The Who, frontman Roger Daltrey said The Who “were never nearer to breaking up.”
Although Lifehouse was abandoned, much of its musical content was used across subsequent releases, including The Who’s Who’s Next and Who Are You and Townshend’s solo records.
In 2019, Townshend announced a 150-page graphic novel based on the Lifehouse project. Written and illustrated by Eisner-award winner James Harvey in cooperation with Image Comics, the book is scheduled for publication on December 6th, 2023.
“A graphic novel based on my very first 1970 concept for The Who’s abandoned Lifehouse project is perhaps the most exciting creative development in my long career,” Townshend announced in 2019. “Lifehouse always had a strong and important visual story that was never even touched on.”
“Even by 1971, when Lifehouse was written, it had to be treated as a film script, which was entirely beyond my skill set and beyond the financial scope of The Who,” Townshend continued. “If I had completed my art studies, instead of staying with The Who, I might have made my own graphic novels. I am excited then, with huge anticipation, that at last Lifehouse can be realised visually, and as a story –- part science fiction, part spiritual allegory.”
Listen below to ‘Relay’, The Who’s non-album single of 1972, initially conceived as part of Lifehouse.
