WHO’S ASKING – Townshend and Daltrey come up with answers on ‘WHO’

[email protected] January 9, 2020

Almost three years into the existence of this blog-site, at the outset it was a safe bet various career stages of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and The Clash would fall under the SAMTIMONIOUS.com spotlight.

Back in 2017 it would have been hard to imagine, as it still does, my scrutiny falling upon a full-blown Kinks reunion or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young record worthy of their illustrious name – but hardest of all to envisage would be writing a review of a new Who album.

Since release of the spirited, but patchy ‘Endless Wire‘ in 2006, The ‘Who Two’ of Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey (along with a highly-proficient touring band) have undertaken live work on a year-on-year basis, but rarely has mention of new recordings entered the equation.

For thirteen years they appeared done as a recording unit, their studio swansong drifting further and further into the past. In fact, even the handful of good ‘Endless Wire‘ songs were undercut by a package including a superb ‘bonus’ CD reflecting their current stage show – as if to say ‘we know the new stuff isn’t top drawer Who, but the other disc shows we’re still the best live band on the planet.’

Indeed, as the final Who album, it looked ‘Endless Wire‘ would have to do, although it was still an improvement on the lacklustre ‘It’s Hard‘ of 1982, which most people had already taken as the last offering of new material anyway – a downbeat end for a group whose catalogue included so many landmark recordings, alongside their long-held reputation as a seminal live act.

So as 2019 drew to a close, surely the pertinent question was, does the world really need a new album from The Who? You could, however, also be forgiven in asking that five weeks after release of ‘WHO‘ does it need another review? (it was The Who-related Christmas present I receive from my wife every year).

Given my nigh-on 45 year interest in this lot, there is hardly anybody else (Dylan possibly), on whom I would spend so much time digesting what a new collection of songs have to say and how they are played – and in going to great lengths to avoid any appraisals of the album, hopefully my dissections of ‘Who’ will come across as fresh and independent.

So after spending at least half of my time as a Who fan being told by Pete Townshend why it is wrong to like them, that I am mad to attend their shows and in some way unstable to find fascination in what they achieved, I pick up my pen to say, just like yesterday, get on my knees and pray, The Who are great again.

Even at his most contrary and contradictory, Townshend has always been the most intriguing interviewee in rock (not to mention the most funny and foul-mouthed) and several of the eleven tracks on ‘Who’ – excluding for a moment the three ‘bonus’ tracks – read like a Townshend interview.

Given he is an interesting character it makes them worthy of interest – and with this new batch of songs he evokes The Who with far more fondness than how he talks about them.

Kicking off, in every sense, with the propulsive ‘All This Music Must Fade,’ Townshend opens proceedings by twisting the marriage adage (often referring to his relationship with Daltrey as such) into ‘what’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine.’ He then hands Roger an opening line loaded with caustic irony: ‘I don’t care I know you’re gonna hate this song/That said, we never really got along‘ – the hook lifted directly from the ‘The Kids Are Alright.’

In what could also been seen as an update of ‘New Song‘ (‘Who Are You’), before the opener finishes Townshend nudges our elbow again: ‘I don’t mind other guys ripping off my song.’ From someone who spent years explaining why he could no longer write ‘Who-type‘ songs, this sounds suspiciously like a belter – turned from a Townshend solo effort into a damned fine Who track by the first in a succession of superb vocal performances by Daltrey, who sinks his teeth in deep and never lets go.

Over the instantly recognisable fury of meshing acoustic and electric guitars, the lyric insists that even great Who music, no matter how vital we think it, will one day become incidental, if it hasn’t already. Townshend closes the piece with a spoken ‘Who gives a fuck,’ which sounds typically churlish, but wonderfully effective in making his point.

Abundantly clear across the piece is the belief Daltrey has in the material he has been presented with. Resisting any temptation to enter ‘best Townshend songs for forty years‘ or ‘finest Who album since‘ territory (such comparisons are largely futile anyway without the magnificent embellishments of Keith Moon and John Entwistle), there is no doubt Townshend has felt compelled to make some emotive statements of both a personal and political nature.

The fact he has chosen to do so by working plenty of trademark Who motifs into the melodies make many of the cuts sound agreeably familiar.

‘I Don’t Wanna Get Wise,’ a glorious take on growing old with attitude, rips along at impressive pace as it recalls ‘Sister Disco,’ while ‘Detour‘ is another fierce rocker that appears to offer reasons for their long absences from the studio, ‘We can’t explain/We lost the force/We went off course,’ even throwing in a ‘People try to‘ line as it moves along with the stop/start chug of ‘Magic Bus.’

The most introspective song and the one sounding closest to a Townshend solo effort, primarily due to him taking lead vocal duties is ‘I’ll Be Back,’ a wistful musing on death and reincarnation that for all its charm at first sounds at odds with the raw emotion elsewhere. In time, however, it begins to fit in the way ‘Blue Red and Grey‘ did on ‘The Who By Numbers‘.

On the string-laden ‘Hero Ground Zero‘ Daltrey is once more in imperious form as Townshend makes observations (‘every rock star wants to make a movie,’/’in the end every leader becomes a clown,’) that you feel have their origins close to home – but the tribulations attached to growing older have now reached a point where ‘On my back is the heat of new sunrise.’

With ‘Street Song‘ Townshend conjures a Grenfell Tower fire victim, portraying imminent death with remarkable tenderness despite being unable to hide his anger at the tragedy – references to banners and streets not the only similarities with ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again.’

‘Ball and Chain‘ is an updated version of the 2015 Townshend solo track ‘Guantanamo‘ which Daltrey growls through to great effect, Caribbean gulag images framed by rippling ‘Quadrophenia‘ styled piano and those acoustic guitar flourishes at which Townshend has always been the master.

From injustice, Pete switches his attention to human tolerance on ‘Beads On One String,’ a straightforward plea to stop religion being a cause of conflict. In this contemporary Who-ballad, Daltrey delivers heartfelt sentiments with great sensibility, the song at times having more in common with John Lennon than John Entwistle.

‘Who‘ begins drawing to a close with ‘Break The News,’ an engaging Simon Townshend composition whose folk overtones give it a Mumford & Sons feel, although lines such as ‘we fell through time and space upon this place and so far we’ve been saved,’ might easily have been concocted by big brother.

In between ‘Break The News‘ and surprisingly low-key closer ‘She Rocked My World‘ (where Roger delivers a curious Bryan Ferry affected vocal over a Flamenco-themed melody), is ‘Rockin In Rage,’ for which the front two save the last of their fire. Building through a series of ‘Behind Blue Eyes‘ progressions, initially self-doubt appears to have carried the day, ‘If I can’t speak my truth for fear of bein’ abused, I might as well be a mute, my voice never used‘ – but what sounds defeatist soon simmers into downright defiance, ‘I’m rockin’ in rage, well past my prime/ Denyin’ the curtain, wastin’ no time.’

With the frenetic instrumental break sounding it has been lifted from somewhere on ‘Quadrophenia‘ you can’t quite place, The Who exude the aggro that carried them from the 1965 stutter and thrust of ‘My Generation‘ through to ‘The Who By Numbers‘ ten years later, Daltrey hurling out, ‘I won’t leave the stage,’ as they eschew any notion of coming quietly.

This is belligerent, brilliant stuff, an eleventh hour reminder that when it comes to combining anger and articulacy there has never been another band like The Who – and for them to produce such an impassioned work so late in the day is testament to their unswerving conviction that rock music matters, they being the group that convinced many of us as such to begin with.

As for the three bonus tracks (each sung by Townshend), ‘This Gun Will Misfire‘ is upbeat and hypnotic. Driven by strident acoustic guitars and rumbling drums, it offers a bleak world view, the line, ‘You can arm yourself with nukes and drones,’ particularly resonant after events in Baghdad last weekend. ‘Got Nothing to Prove‘ amounts to a Townshend demo from 1966 (the vocal similar to his ‘So Sad About Us‘ first take) dressed with a latter-day string arrangement to make it an interesting curio, but no more.

The delightful ‘Danny and my Ponies‘ sees Townshend return to ground he ploughed with such fertile results on ‘Rough Mix,’ his excellent 1977 collaboration with the late Ronnie Lane. Reflective, charming, understated, without doubt it is a fine song yet not a Who one by any estimation, so you do question why it was tacked on the end – in fact with ‘This Gun Will Misfire‘ on the album proper, a twelve track edition would have sufficed, but that, ultimately, is neither here nor there.

The sleeve of ‘Who‘ puts focus on the ‘then’ rather than ‘now’ of The Who, with plenty of the iconography straightaway obvious to the naked eye, you might say. The inclusion of a ‘Face Dances‘ square in the pop-art collage is understandable as creator Peter Blake provided the artwork for the 1981 LP as well, a record that looked for a time as if it may be their last – had it come to pass, ‘Face Dances‘ would also have been a dispiriting way for them to bow out.

Back then the four-man Who (with Kenny Jones on drums) had a combined age of 131, yet now as a double-act they weigh in at 149 – Townshend and Daltrey reaching the end of decade six together before providing a final chapter worthy of their legacy, The Who leaving pretty much as they arrived; snappy, snarly and with something they want to explain.

God bless ’em.

This article was first published on 9/1/2020.

NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available as an Amazon Kindle book.