“Didn’t want that”: The Who song Keith Moon never wanted to release
For a band with a treasure trove of classics, there are bound to be a few songs by The Who that Pete Townshend has grown tired of. Although he always put heart into every track he made, it will be difficult to play those opening chord stabs in ‘Baba O’Riley’ and still have the same energy that he had in his 20s, especially with the bad operating without half of their original members. Although Townshend had a few songs that never clicked with him, he remembered that Keith Moon was never that keen on releasing one particular slow burn from their early years.
Because when you think about it, The Who were a band that always thrived on having a lot of energy. Even though they had their ballads like ‘The Kids Are Alright’, they still had a great backbeat behind them that seemed indebted to the American R&B scene with a bit more attitude behind it.
Then again, Townshend knew that his music could mean more than ripping off his favourites in his record collection. What he was playing had to be something different, and by the time acts like The Beatles had started making the rounds on Sgt Pepper, Townshend started to look at the album as his personal playground to make a sweeping statement.
Whereas A Quick One had been a good proof of concept for an extended piece, The Who Sell Out deserves much more credit for capitalising on the concept album angle. Having the whole record play out as a glorified pirate radio show is still an inspired idea, if only because it gave Townshend more of an opportunity to experiment with different genres like the jingle ‘Odorono’ and the psychedelic haze of ‘I Can See for Miles’.
Out of all the songs on the record, ‘Sunrise’ is one of the most subtly beautiful. Since the entire band was known to come crashing in on every single tune they made, hearing Townshend play a delicate fingerpicked ballad is the exact kind of palette cleanser most of us needed before going into the sweeping finale on ‘Rael’.
Not everyone in the band was particularly happy about it, though, with Townshend remembering, “Keith didn’t want that on the record. See, in a way, that’s a bit of a giveaway to the fact that, at the time, I was studying a bit of this jazz thing. I was still pulling that off. I was studying Mickey Baker methods, and I had two of his tutors, both of which were magnificent. And it’s all that I’ve ever needed to get into slightly more complex chord work.”
It is admittedly not the most exciting thing in the world for a drummer to sit through an acoustic tune, but ‘Sunrise’ opened many more doors than Moon probably realised. The whole concept of using different chords to evoke new musical movements is half the reason why Tommy was able to spread out even further, like when the band started cutting loose in the middle of the song ‘Underture’.
And when looking at The Who’s later work, Townshend became a master at incorporating these acoustic moments into the mix, like on ‘Going Mobile’ or flying solo again on ‘I’m One’ from Quadrophenia. It might not be the thrill ride most fans would expect, but sometimes the best tunes are the ones that take a while to sprawl out.
