Notes and Quotes: "Happy Jack"

Although overshadowed by "A Quick One" (Townshend's first mini musical drama), "Happy Jack" is rhythmically sophisticated and Keith Moon plays his drums as though they were one of the melodic instruments.

Possibly written as part of an aborted opera about "a man whose wife dies and he leaves his home and travels and becomes involved in wars, revolutions, and gets killed," the song shows how Townshend is developing his sense of narrative (Marsh, 240).

Townshend (Marsh, 240-41): That was the day when Keith Moon decided to strong-arm his first vocal performance on the Who.... He decided that he was a singer of merit because "Bucket T," which was a spoof Beach Boys track we did on our Ready, Steady, Who! EP, was number one in Sweden and Keith was singing the lead in his squeaky voice. He went over to Sweden and did it and Keith was swamped with screaming teenagers. So when he came back to record "Happy Jack," he was intent to take, if not the lead vocal, definitely the backing vocal. So we tried it over and over again and it was terrible. Finally, we put him in the control room in the studio. We practically had to tie him up, because he kept escaping and coming out and creeping around the back of all the equipment and popping up behind the mike at the very end. We did this six or seven times; the vocals were getting better, but he was fucking them up by appearing and making us laugh.

Entwistle (Neill and Kent, 93): A lot of the time, Keith would try and join in on the backing vocals, and we'd try and get rid of him. ... After a time, he knew that once he had finished playing the backing track, he should go and get out of there, but he tried creeping back in for "Happy Jack" and that's when Pete said, "I saw yer!" as he was trying to creep back round to the microphone.

Schedule

19 May, 2018