Notes and Quotes: "Pinball Wizard"

This was the first single released of material from the opera and, as such, served as an experiment to see how the opera might go over. The single went over very well.

Desperate to promote his idea of a rock opera, Townshend played some of Tommy for music critic Nik Cohn of The Observer. Cohn was less than excited, until Townshend suggested that Tommy was great at pinball, knowing the that critic loved pinball. Cohn responded enthusiastically to that idea and Townshend hurried home to write a song to that effect.

Townshend: I knocked it off. I thought, 'Oh, my God this is awful, the most clumsy piece of writing I've ever done... Oh my God, I'm embarrassed. This sounds like a Music Hall song... I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on. I attempted the same mock baroque guitar beginning that's on 'I'm a Boy' and then a bit of vigorous kind of flamenco guitar. I was just grabbing at ideas, I knocked a demo together and took it to the studio and everyone loved it. Damon Lyon-Shaw said 'Pete, that's a hit.' Everybody was really excited and I suddenly thought, 'Have I written a hit?' It was just because the only person that we knew would give us a good review was a pinball fanatic. (Barnes 1996)

Schedule

18 April, 2014