The Who songs Pete Townshend called too complex to play live: “The same goes for a number of songs”
Known for their raucous live performances and defiant style of rock and roll, The Who changed the landscape of British rock music indefinitely. From their modest beginnings within the modernist subculture, the Roger Daltrey-fronted band carved out the defining sound of the swinging sixties, inspiring countless future artists. Pete Townshend’s songwriting represented the rebellious voice of Britain’s post-war youth, but his timeless compositions were not always as simple as they seemed.
If you look back at the earliest releases of The Who, in singles like ‘I Can’t Explain’ or ‘My Generation’, you will find that the band was built upon a fairly simplistic manifesto. In contrast to the growing movement of overly complex, self-aggrandising rock music, The Who played fast and loud, and they made it pretty clear what they were singing about. In many ways, Townshend’s band helped to establish the standard procedure for rock bands; you only need a guitarist, a rhythm section, and a singer. During the early years, the band rarely strayed from that standard set-up.
Although their simplistic and infectious early material went on to influence a plethora of future artists and rock scenes, including the development of punk, it would have been foolish for the band to stick to that sound forever. After all, Townshend had been an art student during the early 1960s, and he always maintained a sense of profound artistic ambition. Inevitably, therefore, the compositions of The Who began to get more complicated as the group moved into the 1970s.
For instance, the band’s seminal 1969 record, Tommy, was a colossal undertaking. Helping to establish the idea of rock operas, the concept record was unlike anything released prior, and it set up the mature new era of The Who. Following that, subsequent tracks like ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Love Reign O’er Me’ spoke to Townshend’s artistic vision by adopting innovative techniques of tape splicing and employing synthesisers.
Although these later efforts are regularly hailed as some of the most profound works of the rock genre, some of The Who’s early material was equally as complex and ambitious. Take the postmodern brilliance of The Who Sell Out, for instance, and you will find multiple examples of Townshend’s increasingly complex compositions, laying the groundwork for later records like Tommy or Quadrophenia.
One track from Sell Out, entitled ‘I Can See For Miles’ earned The Who a top-ten single in the UK and quickly became a fan favourite. Despite its reputation, however, Townshend and his band rarely played the song during their live performances. According to the songwriter, this owed to the fact that ‘I Can See For Miles’ is a lot more complicated than it might initially seem. “It is very complex,” he once shared, “It has six vocal parts, and three guitar parts, for example.”
As a result of its complexities, The Who could only do it justice if the band toured with a variety of extra members. “That is why we did such a great version of it on the 1989 tour when he had a really big band,” Townshend said, adding, “The same goes for a number of songs on Quadrophenia – they are rich and deeply layered. They just don’t all work stripped down.”
So, while The Who might have been masters of simplistic, stripped-back rock and roll during the 1960s, some of the band’s most popular work is far more mature than often given credit for. ‘I Can See For Miles’ remains a defining track for Townshend, even if the band were only able to share it with a select few live audiences over the years.
