“Spiritual Searching”: Pete Townshend picks The Who’s most seminal song
When The Who first debuted, rock and roll was already in a transitionary period. The Beatles had set the precedent for what British bands could sound like, but when ‘My Generation’ blew the doors open for heavy music in 1965, people were already moving on to what the cosmic aspect of rock and roll had to offer. Pete Townshend may not have had too much time for the acid-soaked dreams that every other hippy was looking for, but he was always interested in using music as a means of communication.
Hell, that’s half of what Tommy and Quadrophenia are all about. Both of the band’s rock operas were supposed to be a way for them to push the boundaries of song construction, but behind the music was a story of two protagonists who are using music as either a means of escape or, in the case of the character of Tommy, a way to connect with the outside world beyond all of his physical ailments.
Looking at Townshend’s writing, though, there’s a lot more to the story than relating to someone through music. People had already developed surrogate relationships with The Beatles through their music, but for Townshend, it was a far greater spiritual practice whenever he made a song. He knew that he was far from the genius that everyone took him for, but whenever he got onstage, he knew he had a duty to give fans a show that could change the way they thought about life.
Much of that concept could have been explored on Lifehouse, but the table scraps on Who’s Next were going to have to suffice. After all, ‘Baba O’Riley’ was a tribute to the spiritual guru Meher Baba, and since Townshend was talking about renting out the Old Vic Theatre to deliver the album in real-time, it sounded like he was trying to create his individualised version of utopia for his magnum opus.
That kind of magic never fully came to pass, but Townshend should have known when looking at the way he described spiritualism in the past. Whereas the guitarist always talked about something that was wrong with him through his characters, ‘The Seeker’ is one of the most brutally honest songs that he ever wrote, talking about being on his spiritual journey and recognising the fact that he’ll never fully come to grips with what he wants until he’s six feet underground.
“‘The Seeker’ was a seminal piece for me about the necessary fruitlessness of spiritual searching.”
Pete Townshend
Despite not being on any of their studio albums, Townshend considered ‘The Seeker’ a major breakthrough for him as a songwriter, saying, “‘The Seeker’ was a seminal piece for me about the necessary fruitlessness of spiritual searching. Why fruitless? Because we are always where we are supposed to be.” And listening back to his classics, a lot of what he was getting at here turned up in tracks like ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’.
Everyone might listen to that song for the greatest scream in rock history and the massive build-up in the middle of the tune, but since this was intended to be the finale of the Lifehouse project, hearing the line ‘Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss’ is a sadly realistic look at how rulers work. Townshend may have tried to become the next guiding force, but he knew that if he took it any further, he was more likely going to turn into the kind of artist that he despised when he started.
That never really stopped, either, with ‘Eminence Front’ being the moment where he acknowledged that he couldn’t keep up the charade of being invested in the band. It may be a fairly dour way of looking at the role of a musician, but from day one, Townshend would rather have been honest with his audience than try to sell them something that he didn’t believe in.
