Pete Townshend had been trying out ideas through the title song from 'A Quick One' as well as 'Rael' from 'The Who Sell Out'. All this was to lead to the creation of an album long narrative or song cycle, later dubbed a Rock Opera. 'Tommy' isn't really any sort of Opera at all, but then 'Rock Opera' has come to mean something different, in any case. A few years later, Frank Zappa for example, would actually incorporate elements of classical music and operatic vocal parts for his '200 Motels' film and album. Frank had been trying to get a film together for years, a group called 'The Pretty Things' released an album called 'SF Sorrow' which retrospectively has been dubbed the first Rock Opera. Still, in the minds of many, 'Tommy' by The Who is THE Rock Opera, and is likely to remain that way. The lack of orchestral elements ( bar a few Horn parts courtesy of Entwistle ) was down to the insistence of Townshend who wanted to make sure 'Tommy' could faithfully be re-produced in a live setting. Regarding the actual story of Tommy, it was conceived as a spiritual piece - the later writing and inclusion of 'Pinball Wizard' switched everything to more down to earth matters. 'Pinball Wizard' had only been written because The Who feared a bad review from a particular journalist, knew he loved Pinball and wrote a song for him. Upon hearing said song and regarding 'Tommy' as a whole, said journalist assured Pete, "it'll be a masterpiece". Pinball references were worked into various songs. The basic idea of a young kid rendered deaf, dumb and blind - playing 'a mean pinball' through feeling the vibrations of the machine, is of course ridiculous. The idea that Tommy achieved a following through his feats of Pinball, is also of course, ridiculous. Tommy is later cured, hooray! Tommy is hailed as a messiah, has a simple message, 'you can follow me by playing pinball and doing things my way' but as his followers get more demanding things start to fall apart for both Tommy and his followers. All of this, is of course, ridiculous.
You know, it took me a while to even piece together the story. I've never seen the film, a stage play. 'Tommy' eventually took on a life of its own. Kit Lambert ( manager of The Who, producer of 'Tommy', the album ) wrote a film script which clarified matters for all of the members of The Who that weren't Pete, none of whom had much of an idea how the story worked or what it was about. Trying to get 'the story' just from listening to the album, or even reading the lyrics, is virtually impossible. There are holes everywhere, so much left unsaid. Those of you who came into 'Tommy' through a staged version, and then listened to the album, will likely find it making much more sense than someone coming to it, er.... 'blind'. Then there is the live situation. The Who were at an absolute peak as live performers in 1970 and 1971 as they toured the 'Tommy' album. The sheer power of these live performances succeeded in further spreading the word about 'Tommy' and made The Who firm lifelong favourites of many. The Who evolved, after the event. It's been said, 'Tommy' is an album you either love or hate. I've come across critics known for their love of The Who, ridiculously claiming to be viewing 'Tommy' objectively. Others will slam 'Tommy' and The Who out of habit, more than anything else. You don't have to like The Who of course, but giving 'Tommy' one out of five stars on Amazon for example, is clearly very silly. It is indeed very difficult to take any sort of 'middle' ground, it seems you almost 'must' fall one side of the fence or the other. Having said that, not at least acknowledging 'Tommy' as an influential, immensely popular work, is of course, ridiculous. There's some confusion as to why the sound of this record is relatively sparse. Certainly there is little evidence of The Who as a powerhouse force here, although it is there in places. In the liner-notes of the CD issue I have, Townshend recalls "Kit Lambert wanted to bring in a full orchestra and I fought it all the way". The recording took many months and proved to be expensive, so perhaps it was just as well. The Who had gotten themselves perilously into debt, had 'Tommy' not been the success it was, who knows what might have happened? But, enough with the history!
There are some truly beautiful musical moments on this album, many of them arrive tracks one through to eight. The opening 'Overture' is all horns and bashing riffs. It works extremely well to introduce the entire album. It does this without once including any lyrics or words, by the way. 'It's A Boy' is a beautiful melody that's only 38 seconds long and moves almost invisibly into the fabulous '1921'. '1921' has lyrics I can really dig, great melodies. 'Amazing Journey' is a little 'annoying' vocally and lyrically but the music and performance is again stupendous. Wonderful acoustic guitar playing, great work from Keith Moon as well. 'Sparks' may well be an instrumental that doesn't really go any place, but again, it sounds great from a performance point of view. 'Eyesight To The Blind' is a blues cover worked into the 'Tommy' concept fantastically well, 'Christmas' is happy with 'ha ha ha' vocal parts, even if of course the lyrics aren't entirely happy, because poor hapless Tommy is at the root of it all. 'Cousin Kevin' is the first John Entwistle song here. Nice vocals, nice relaxed laid back musical feels quite in contrast to the cruel lyrical matter! It's at this point 'Tommy' starts to lose its way, somewhat. 'The Acid Queen' is strained vocally and the music fails to surprise, 'Overture' is a ten minute long instrumental reprising themes and ideas, sounds stitched together makeshift fashion, and it probably was. It sounds ok, but really should have been half as long as it is. The second half of the album contains an awful lot of 30 second, 60 second, 'songs' - included to develop the plot of the story. Some of them are quite nice, witness 'Tommy Can You Hear Me', almost emotional in fact. Others such as the truly horrific 'Fiddle About' are just plain ugly. You could defend this depiction of sexual abuse by saying it's 'light-hearted' in terms of structure, and indeed the repeated 'fiddle, fiddle, fiddle....' ending half raises a smile - but not enough of one.
'Pinball Wizard' is here of course, but for me worked better as a stand alone single. In this context, it comes across as something of an anti-climax. 'Go To The Mirror' and 'I'm Free' are both great songs, both full of riffing guitars, 'I'm Free' especially. 'Sensation' is semi-nice, but surely doesn't bear comparison to the finest moments from 'The Who Sell Out', for example? It sounds half-developed, to me. Pete stretched himself too far, perhaps? It's asking a lot of anyone to fill out a double vinyl concept album, after all. 'Sally Simpson' has good lyrics, 'Welcome' is up and down, down ultimately. This song in particular sounds bare sonically, which hasn't been particularly a problem til now on the album, because the linking tracks apart, the good songs here are just that, good songs. 'Welcome' sounds like it needed a little more thought and fleshing out, both musically and lyrically. The closing 'We're Not Gonna Take It' incorporates all sorts of ideas, includes the 'see me, feel me' vocal section which pops up elsewhere on this album, too. It's a suitably 'epic' grand closing statement, the 'see me, feel me, touch me' section particularly beautiful even if the rest of the song really isn't all that special to me. It may well be special to you, I hope that it is.
I do know that 'Tommy' is special to huge numbers of people. To me, it's just a good album, although by no means a great album. At least arriving at some sort of idea of what the story is and what's behind the story is important I feel, you really can't just ignore it - because it does bring a different dimension to songs such as 'Sally Simpson', for example. Ultimately, I have respect for what Pete Townshend tried to achieve here, but by his own admission he had little concept of screen-play or staging at the time. Pete would continue to try to improve upon what he perceived to be failures in 'Tommy', first with the abandoned 'Lifehouse' project then later with the 'Quadrophenia' album and film.
Overture / It's a boy / 1921 / Amazing journey / Sparks / Eyesight to the blind (the hawker) / Christmas / Cousin Kevin / Acid Queen / Underture / Do you think it's alright / Fiddle about / Pinball wizard / There's a doctor / Go to the mirror / Tommy / Can you hear me / Smash the mirror / Sensation / Miracle cure / Sally Simpson / I'm free / Welcome / Tommy's holiday camp / We're not gonna take it
You know, it took me a while to even piece together the story. I've never seen the film, a stage play. 'Tommy' eventually took on a life of its own. Kit Lambert ( manager of The Who, producer of 'Tommy', the album ) wrote a film script which clarified matters for all of the members of The Who that weren't Pete, none of whom had much of an idea how the story worked or what it was about. Trying to get 'the story' just from listening to the album, or even reading the lyrics, is virtually impossible. There are holes everywhere, so much left unsaid. Those of you who came into 'Tommy' through a staged version, and then listened to the album, will likely find it making much more sense than someone coming to it, er.... 'blind'. Then there is the live situation. The Who were at an absolute peak as live performers in 1970 and 1971 as they toured the 'Tommy' album. The sheer power of these live performances succeeded in further spreading the word about 'Tommy' and made The Who firm lifelong favourites of many. The Who evolved, after the event. It's been said, 'Tommy' is an album you either love or hate. I've come across critics known for their love of The Who, ridiculously claiming to be viewing 'Tommy' objectively. Others will slam 'Tommy' and The Who out of habit, more than anything else. You don't have to like The Who of course, but giving 'Tommy' one out of five stars on Amazon for example, is clearly very silly. It is indeed very difficult to take any sort of 'middle' ground, it seems you almost 'must' fall one side of the fence or the other. Having said that, not at least acknowledging 'Tommy' as an influential, immensely popular work, is of course, ridiculous. There's some confusion as to why the sound of this record is relatively sparse. Certainly there is little evidence of The Who as a powerhouse force here, although it is there in places. In the liner-notes of the CD issue I have, Townshend recalls "Kit Lambert wanted to bring in a full orchestra and I fought it all the way". The recording took many months and proved to be expensive, so perhaps it was just as well. The Who had gotten themselves perilously into debt, had 'Tommy' not been the success it was, who knows what might have happened? But, enough with the history!
There are some truly beautiful musical moments on this album, many of them arrive tracks one through to eight. The opening 'Overture' is all horns and bashing riffs. It works extremely well to introduce the entire album. It does this without once including any lyrics or words, by the way. 'It's A Boy' is a beautiful melody that's only 38 seconds long and moves almost invisibly into the fabulous '1921'. '1921' has lyrics I can really dig, great melodies. 'Amazing Journey' is a little 'annoying' vocally and lyrically but the music and performance is again stupendous. Wonderful acoustic guitar playing, great work from Keith Moon as well. 'Sparks' may well be an instrumental that doesn't really go any place, but again, it sounds great from a performance point of view. 'Eyesight To The Blind' is a blues cover worked into the 'Tommy' concept fantastically well, 'Christmas' is happy with 'ha ha ha' vocal parts, even if of course the lyrics aren't entirely happy, because poor hapless Tommy is at the root of it all. 'Cousin Kevin' is the first John Entwistle song here. Nice vocals, nice relaxed laid back musical feels quite in contrast to the cruel lyrical matter! It's at this point 'Tommy' starts to lose its way, somewhat. 'The Acid Queen' is strained vocally and the music fails to surprise, 'Overture' is a ten minute long instrumental reprising themes and ideas, sounds stitched together makeshift fashion, and it probably was. It sounds ok, but really should have been half as long as it is. The second half of the album contains an awful lot of 30 second, 60 second, 'songs' - included to develop the plot of the story. Some of them are quite nice, witness 'Tommy Can You Hear Me', almost emotional in fact. Others such as the truly horrific 'Fiddle About' are just plain ugly. You could defend this depiction of sexual abuse by saying it's 'light-hearted' in terms of structure, and indeed the repeated 'fiddle, fiddle, fiddle....' ending half raises a smile - but not enough of one.
'Pinball Wizard' is here of course, but for me worked better as a stand alone single. In this context, it comes across as something of an anti-climax. 'Go To The Mirror' and 'I'm Free' are both great songs, both full of riffing guitars, 'I'm Free' especially. 'Sensation' is semi-nice, but surely doesn't bear comparison to the finest moments from 'The Who Sell Out', for example? It sounds half-developed, to me. Pete stretched himself too far, perhaps? It's asking a lot of anyone to fill out a double vinyl concept album, after all. 'Sally Simpson' has good lyrics, 'Welcome' is up and down, down ultimately. This song in particular sounds bare sonically, which hasn't been particularly a problem til now on the album, because the linking tracks apart, the good songs here are just that, good songs. 'Welcome' sounds like it needed a little more thought and fleshing out, both musically and lyrically. The closing 'We're Not Gonna Take It' incorporates all sorts of ideas, includes the 'see me, feel me' vocal section which pops up elsewhere on this album, too. It's a suitably 'epic' grand closing statement, the 'see me, feel me, touch me' section particularly beautiful even if the rest of the song really isn't all that special to me. It may well be special to you, I hope that it is.
I do know that 'Tommy' is special to huge numbers of people. To me, it's just a good album, although by no means a great album. At least arriving at some sort of idea of what the story is and what's behind the story is important I feel, you really can't just ignore it - because it does bring a different dimension to songs such as 'Sally Simpson', for example. Ultimately, I have respect for what Pete Townshend tried to achieve here, but by his own admission he had little concept of screen-play or staging at the time. Pete would continue to try to improve upon what he perceived to be failures in 'Tommy', first with the abandoned 'Lifehouse' project then later with the 'Quadrophenia' album and film.
Overture / It's a boy / 1921 / Amazing journey / Sparks / Eyesight to the blind (the hawker) / Christmas / Cousin Kevin / Acid Queen / Underture / Do you think it's alright / Fiddle about / Pinball wizard / There's a doctor / Go to the mirror / Tommy / Can you hear me / Smash the mirror / Sensation / Miracle cure / Sally Simpson / I'm free / Welcome / Tommy's holiday camp / We're not gonna take it
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