The Who song Pete Townshend remains “embarassed” by
By the end of 1968, most of The Who’s rock opera opus Tommy had been written and assembled. Pete Townshend composed the majority of the songs, with two John Entwistle songs, a single Keith Moon composition, and a Sonny Boy Williamson II cover in the mix as well. As Townshend told Rolling Stone at the end of the year, almost all of the story’s elements were in place.
“The package I hope is going to be called Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy,” Townshend explained. “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,” he added.
According to the 2002 book Anywhere Anyhow Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of The Who, Townshend took a rough cut of the album to British music critic Nik Cohn. Cohn was less than enthusiastic about the album, and in order to remedy this, Townshend decided to write a new song containing Cohn’s favourite pastime: pinball.
The writing and recording of ‘Pinball Wizard’ happened quickly as the sessions for Tommy were coming to an end. Townshend considered the song to be filler, but the recording wound up being picked out as the lead single from the album. Years later, while writing updated liner notes for the 2003 reissue of the album, Townshend remained unconvinced of the song’s merits.
“I’m embarrassed. This sounds like a Music Hall song,” Townshend claimed. “’Sure plays a mean pinball.’ I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on.”
“I attempted the same mock baroque guitar beginning that’s on ‘I’m a Boy’ and then a bit of vigorous kind of flamenco guitar,” Townshend added. “I was just grabbing at ideas, I knocked a demo together and took it to the studio and everyone loved it.”
Despite Townshend’s embarrassment, ‘Pinball Wizard’ became one of the most beloved songs in The Who’s catalogue. The band have continued to feature the song in their live shows up to the present day, even if Townshend doesn’t consider it to be one of his best works.
