The Who song that Pete Townshend used to make Roger Daltrey “angry”
The comedian Phyllis Diller once said, “A smile is a curve that sets everything straight”. This is a pleasant, universally applicable quote. However, when it comes to fractious rock bands like The Who, perhaps Tupac Shakur’s line is a better fit: “Behind every sweet smile, there is a bitter sadness that no one can ever see and feel”.
The hippies may have sung about peace, but within the era’s many successful rock bands, the P-word rarely existed. In The Who’s case, all members had different outlooks on life and art. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey may have looked like kindred spirits on stage, but their association was primarily contractual and businesslike.
Far from the guitar-smashing dynamo that he would become in just a few short years, Townshend began his musical career as a schoolboy, playing the banjo as one of The Confederates, a jazz band also featuring brass instrumentalist John Entwistle. The pair later realised that rock ‘n’ roll was more in vogue, and Entwistle dropped the “R” from his instrument of choice.
With the longest history and a shared passion for jazz, Townshend and Entwistle were perhaps the closest of The Who. When they crossed paths with Roger Daltrey and later Keith Moon, they knew they had met a fine rock vocalist and a drummer who could play both innovatively and explosively.
Despite The Who’s success throughout the 1960s and ’70s, the band endured smouldering resentment. Of course, when things were going well, the band could get on just fine, but acrid spells were all too common. Infamously, early rows nearly broke the group up before it got going in the mid-1960s and in 1969, while Townshend ripped his hair out trying to nail his later-abandoned Lifehouse rock opera, they nearly called it quite altogether. “It was the closest we ever came to breaking up,” Daltrey later reflected.
Though Moon’s well-documented hedonism and unpredictable antics were certainly a stressor, the most significant rift always seemed to appear between Townshend and Daltrey. The pair notably came to blows in 1973 while preparing for the Quadrophenia tour, a fight during which Townshend nearly bonked his singer on the skull with a Les Paul. In the end, Daltrey knocked the guitarist out with one clean uppercut.
Today, Daltrey and Townshend are the only surviving members of The Who’s classic lineup. They have found ways to get on as ageing co-workers but still claim to be like chalk and cheese. In 2016, Townshend discussed their differing political views as an example of one of the ways in which they differed.
“I’m a Remainer; he is a Brexiteer,” he told The Telegraph. “I believe in God; he doesn’t.”
In 2022, Daltrey also commented on the pair’s differences, explaining that while they had chemistry on stage and enjoyed creating music together, they had very little to say off-stage. “Our relationship is a working one, and that’s about as far as it goes,” he said.
Adding: “But when we get on stage, there’s a chemistry that’s created. When we’re playing well, it starts to kick in properly. It’s still as wonderful as ever. We never really had a strong relationship off of the stage, though. It’s as simple as that.”
As it transpires, chemistry wasn’t necessarily a given on stage, either. While Townshend dislikes a few of his old songs, including ‘Pinball Wizard’, none quite measure up to ‘Sister Disco’. The reason for his hatred of the song lies in the live show and his feigned chemistry with Daltrey. “‘Sister Disco’, I hate even more than ‘Dreaming From The Waist’ because there is a point in which every time we’ve done it where Roger comes over to me, stands next to me and makes some kind of soppy smile, which is supposed to communicate some kind of Everly Brothers relationship we have for the audience, which isn’t actually there,” he said.
The guitarist seemed to reveal a love-hate relationship with the song, wherein he enjoys playing it, so he has the opportunity to blank his bandmate. “It’s supposed to be an act where I’m supposed to collude like, ‘We know each other very well; we look like enemies, but we are friends really,’ kind of look,” he added. “Often that will be the moment where I look him in the face and go, ‘You fucking wanker,’ and he gets angry when I do that.”
