Pete Townshend
His solo peak stands on its own with his peers. And they are not who you think.
I've been on a Pete Townshend kick lately. I've always preferred solo Townshend to the Daltrey-fronted Who and always prefer versions of the anthems with Pete on vocals if I can find them.
My big takeaway from this binge is that while The Who peaked in 1971 with Who's Next, Townshend's solo career peaked—not as I’d previously thought about it: a middle-aged rocker from the late-60s and early-70s trying keep making classic rock or to fit in with late-70s and early-80s new wave depending on his mood.
NO. Townshend fit right in with the punks and post-punks of 1977-85 that he’d helped give birth to. If Paul Weller is the mod-father, Townshend is the grand-mod-father. In his late 30s and early 40s, he was holding his own with The Jam, The Police, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, The Beat, Squeeze, and The Clash quite well, thank you very much. That eco-system of bands—including, as well, The Specials, The Sex Pistols, and the Buzzcocks—peaked between 1977 and 1982 and it was pretty much over by the end of '82. But Townshend as a solo artist peaked in 1985 with White City and Deep End Live in '86.
Of course, The Who, and Pete Townshend especially, were one of the original inspirations of punk in the mid-sixties along with The Kinks, The Animals, and The Troggs with hits like My Generation and Out in the Street and the smashed guitars and drums sets.
Spiritually, this run starts with the movie Quadrophenia (1979) produced by The Who. While ostensibly about the confused young man who tries to find himself in the mod movement 1964 London, the feel of the film is pure punk circa 1977. The movie features no less than Sting, barely into Police fame, in a striking cameo. As Ace Face, he is the most charismatic of the Mods with the coolest scooter in the seaside town of Brighton where Mods from around the country descend for a weekend of amphetamine-fueled brawling with 50’s throwback Rockers.
In an iconic scene, the Mods have been rounded up by Brighton police and are facing sentencing in court. Confronted by the judge with what the other boys see as a hefty fine, Ace Face coolly pulls out his cheque book and nonchalantly writes a check for the full amount while on the stand. The Mods in the court room go wild.
Later though, our protagonist Jimmy sees Ace Face’s gorgeous scooter parked by the grandest hotel in Brighton. Next he sees Ace Face working for tips as a bellhop. Disgusted and disillusioned at finding the source of Ace Faces’ power rooted in subservience to The Man, Jimmy steals the scooter and drives it off a massive chalk cliff by the sea in the film’s dramatic and cathartic conclusion.
Rough Boys (1980), his best solo song hands down, was written as a love letter to the Pistols and the punk scene in general. It's as raw and brave as anything Weller or Costello or Jackson were putting out. Roger Daltrey was reportedly miffed that Townshend kept the song for himself but I think it’s doubtful he would have had the balls to sing it.
Wikipedia:
Townshend dedicated "Rough Boys" to the Sex Pistols as well as his children, Emma and Minta, on the album sleeve of Empty Glass.
Rock star Alice Cooper said of the song, "You have Pete's sexual ambiguity going on here — it sounds like a gay song. I still don't know exactly what he was trying to say with that song, but I love it, whatever it is. Pete's an amazing mystery."
During a 1989 interview with Timothy White, Townshend made reference to the song "Rough Boys", calling the song a "coming out, an acknowledgment of the fact that I'd had a gay life, and that I understood what gay sex was about. I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman.” Five years later, in an interview with Playboy, he said, "I did an interview about it, saying that 'Rough Boys' was about being gay, and in the interview I also talked about my 'gay life,' which—I meant—was actually about the friends I've had who are gay. So the interviewer kind of dotted the t's and crossed the i's and assumed that this was a coming out, which it wasn't at all."
Who Are You the title track from Keith Moon's final Who album in 1978 was written after leaving a nasty meeting with studio suits and ending up on a drunken tear through London with Paul Cook and Jonesy from the Pistols. Townshend did in fact wake up in a Soho doorway where a policeman knew his name. And the policeman did in fact tell him that he could go sleep at home that night if he could get up and walk away.
Not all, but several songs from Empty Glass (1980) and All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982) would be right at home on albums by Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, The Beat, or The Jam. But it wouldn’t be until White City that he really hit his stride as a solo artist at the ripe old age of forty.
Songs from White City come right out of the Clash songbook with references to street fighting, guns , tense race relations. After the Fire which appears on live on Deep End Live was originally written for and recorded by Roger Daltrey. It did well on the charts after appearing in a episode of Miami Vice. It was originally written for the Live Aid concert as a commentary on South Africa the Deep End Live version is much better than the lame '80s ballad version Daltry did in references to the sound of gunplay in the streets and watching Matt Dillon on TV connect directly to the Clash into Matt Dillon's later guest appearance on the Big Audio Dynamite song Dial a Hitman.
I heard a voice asking what happens after the fire.
And the sound of a breaking window and the scream of a tire.
And then the sound of a Brixton gun and the scream of a child.
The night is hot.
Nothing's gonna stop
This gang running wild.
After the fire, the fire still burns
The heart grows older but never, ever learns
The memories smolder. The soul always yearns.
After the fire, the fire still burns.
I saw Matt Dillon in black and white. There ain't no colour in my memories.
He rode his brother's old Harley ‘cross the TV while I was laughing at Dom DeLuise.
I'm sockin’ through all my old video tapes. I'm crying. And I'm joking.
I've gotta stop drinking.
I've gotta stop thinking.
I've gotta stop smoking.
Deep End Live Also features a cover of The Beat’s Save it for Later. English Boy from 1993's Psychoderelict would be right at home on any Jam album. Townshend’s greatest hits collection is named a very Jammesque … Truancy.
With the Deep End band from that period (and his plain white collared shirts and classic black blazer) Townshend found a contemporary style that suited his age and put him right at home with the hip kids of the day. The band had drums and very pronounced percussion from Jody Linscott, horns, female back singers, and crisp, contemporary guitar work from another aging rocker, David Gilmore. A song like Stop Hurting People was somewhat stilted attempt at new wave on Chinese Eyes but came to life a few years later with the arrangement on the Deep End tours embracing the sincerity of the song that got lost in attempt at emo new wave that hampers parts of Chinese Eyes. It’s song that would have been at home on any Elvis Costello album of the time.
Face the Face felt like at twin brother to The Eurythmics Would I Lie to You? They are just having a blast on both stages. Likewise it wasn’t far off from some of Joe Jackson’s big band and jump blues numbers. Or the Stray Cats big band punkabilly for that matter.
So click through and watch videos, listen to the playlist below and see if you come away with a different sense of that aging seventies stadium rock dinosaur as he lumbered round the bases past forty and found himself vying with the bands he’d inspired with The Who’s earliest hits in the mid-sixties when the Mods adopted the Who and the Who helped invent punk. Lots of Townshend’s peers from Rock and Roll Olympus, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Ray Davies, Mick Jagger, were putting out solo records in those days. None of them put out an album that matches White City or a song that matches Rough Boys. Paul Simon put out Graceland in 1986 when he was 45. But that’s an entirely different rabbithole.