The Who Dozen.

Keep me movin', over 50 ... This weekend brought not one but two roundtrip forays to Richmond. The first return home started at the perfect time -- well after rush hour but before dark. One of the discs in the road case was a homemade Who comp I hadn't dusted off in a long time. But being rarely played doesn't make something less valuable; that's missing the point of having a lot of music (having the right thing for the right moment).

And that's what happened Friday night, on 64 West around dusk with good weather and an open sunroof. The Who in the (albeit early) summer reminds me of the summer I was a courier. It was also the summer of the Join Together tour, whose subsequent CD set was/is oft maligned by the diehard cognoscenti (and allmusic) but perfectly good for my use. I've attended just a few concerts on a whim, and one was the Who at RFK that year. Just took off after work, got to the venue, and grabbed a very average seat. Sure, Pete was playing acoustic and sequestered behind acoustibulletproof glass for his health that tour, but they were still the Who, and they sounded pretty good.

This theme (a somewhat casual fan with less than a purist's outlook) continues into The Who Dozen, presented here in alpha order (and 5.1 surround sound where available).

Another Tricky Day - Multiple hooks, smartly layered instruments, even room for the windmill maneuver ... kind of an odd closer for Face Dances, but a great single.
Bargain - Again and again, Townshend has set himself apart by writing superior bridges. Plenty of examples in these twelve, but this is always the song that comes to mind.
Eminence Front - Not the most popular sampled keyboard track in a Who song, but the first released after the birth of MTV. (Remember that soundcheck video?) It sets the tone for what in retrospect looks a lot like a lyric outtake from Wish You Were Here. Musically, the song couldn't make it without the rhythmic change-up of a riff between the two lyric sections (which I think in fact only occurs once). Sometimes it's the little things.
5:15 - Where the previous track demonstrated Townshend's knack for working programmed keys into the final product, here's an example of the band's loyalty to "real" piano or keyboard to give a song that critical layer. In that sense, the song had me at the intro. Throw in the bruising core of the song and the "inside/outside" interludes, and you have a track that can stand up to the contemporary Stones' muscle but with a certain sensitivity beyond Mick's grasp.
Getting In Tune - A classic Townshend song given especially well-crafted arrangement and production, including careful but inspired work from Mr. Entwistle.
I'm One - The textbook version remains the solo take on Live At The Deep End for me, but it's from Quadrophenia, of course, and the lyric can stand for the entire Townshend catalog as well as any song.
Join Together - Conveys that simultaneous sense of strength and space that not many bands can pull off.
Sally Simpson - The least famous entry on the list, a bouncy tale of fan adoration from Tommy.
Squeeze Box - I've never compared the band's work to the sounds of their colleagues before this post, but couldn't you hear this as a little rave-up from The Band? Its folksy charm reminds me of CCR's "Down On The Corner", but mostly I could hear this ending and "Chest Fever" cranking up next.
Substitute - Finally, something from the '60s. To continue our little theme, one could argue that this song is the godfather of Elvis Costello's first three albums. The "Coke for gin" line gets the press, but the brilliance is "I look pretty young, but I'm just backdated, yeah ...", isn't it? However, there's no argument that the bass tone here is perfectly rude. (Name a top British Invasion band who can't cop to the musical-influence confession that "I look all white, but my dad was black.")
Who Are You - Those squishy keys pinballing between speakers didn't sound like anything else I recall at the time, sparring with the electric guitar until they both give way to the background vocals and piano in another totally effective middle eight.
You Better You Bet - Three songs from Face Dances? That's right. Guitar and piano weave in and out among the synths that manage to avoid sounding cheesy, topped by that chest-thumping vocal and a lyric that again didn't sound like anything else on the radio. I have to admit, after all these years, it wasn't until this weekend that I noticed that T-Rex is sharing time on the turntable with Who's Next. Classic.

tags: the who  

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