1967: The Who Sell Out
By Ed Plunkett
There were two careers I wanted when I was growing up: a Hollywood stuntman, and a radio disc jockey.
The energy of New York radio in the 60’s and 70’s kept me alive as I listened all hours to the magic of WABC-AM, and their tight Top 40 playlist that still brings back memories of the British Invasion hits that they broke and the great R&B songs they pivoted to in the early to mid 70’s. At the time of my 13th birthday, I chose the Beatles 1967-1970 album over a bowling ball. It was clear that my priorities had changed. Any thoughts of being a stuntman went away and never returned.
On the night of my junior prom, which I did not attend, I went to see The Kids Are Alright. I had a date, but she was more interested in someone else and being awkward, there were no thoughts of a backup plan. At 15, I was not overly familiar with the music of The Who, let alone their history. I remember the guy who ran the local bike shop sitting forlornly outside of the front door saying, “Keith Moon died…” the day of his passing. The utter chaos of the band appealed to me. The noise of Pete Townshend, the calm demons of John Entwistle, the power of Roger Daltrey and the complete destructive mayhem that was Keith Moon. I had new records to buy (or steal from Woolworth in the South Shore Mall, where I nicked the soundtrack).
There was also a cool budget double disc of earlier music from The Who and I purchased “A Quick One/The Who Sell Out” with money from the paper route I’d quit by the time I was sixteen. There’s nothing wrong with “A Quick One.” The title song is a concept of its own that the band performed brilliantly on the uneven Rolling Stones “Rock and Roll Circus” film.
“The Who Sell Out” is the record I played more, much more. It opens with an old time radio jingle alerting us with the days of the week. This was pirate radio in England in the late 1960’s and it was exciting and romantic to a friendless sixteen year old.
A jingle fades into a spacey atmosphere and a song called “Armenia City in the Sky.” Where was this place? And who is that singing? Roger sounds odd, it’s him joined by Speedy Keen - the guy who wrote the song. A couple of years later, Pete would produce Keen’s band Thunderclap Newman; they had a huge hit called “Something in the Air.”
After a song blares out Entwistle’s horn blares out, a number of goon voices ask, “What’s for tea?” With the eventual answer being Heinz Baked Beans. The radio program continues with an echoing, “More music, more music…”
My eighteen year old son is autistic and non-verbal. It has been lifelong frustration for all of us to find out things he wants, and wants to do. One thing we know that he likes is music. I've loaded up his iPad with music that I would listen to and try to put in some songs that people his age are listening to. He keeps going back to the older, acoustic guitar centered songs. One of those songs in his rotation was “Marianne With the Shaky Hands.” He prefers the mono mix to the stereo; it has more acoustic guitars. The first time I played a vinyl record just for him, it was Marianne — the b-side to I Can See For Miles. He sat in his chair and rocked front to back. A sign of acceptance. These days he’ll find a song by Teenage Fanclub and fixate on it for a day or two and he keeps going back to Mali blues songs. But I can hear Marianne once in a while, wafting from his room.
Townshend next narrates the tale of a female singer who gives a triumphant performance, but when she meets one of her admirers (who she fancies) after the show, she is rejected. Oh why did this happen? Turns out, she should have used Odorono.
“Tattoo”is one of Townshend’s best, and it has one of Daltrey’s most gorgeous vocals. There is a version of this song they performed at the Fillmore East in 1968 that is absolutely incredible. Townshend’s cranky because they had been hunting for a hotel all day (we’ve been kicked out of three), Martin Luther King was assassinated a couple of days before and things in New York were tense. The band pulled out a magnificent performance and Moon absolutely dominates this number with his drum fills.
As “Tattoo” ends, a cacophony of drums is heard and the band is screaming “Premier Drums,” which just happened to be the kit brand Keith Moon used, and another radio jingle fades in, a female singer lets us know it’s smooth sailing with the highly successful sounds of wonderful Radio London.
The lovely “Our Love Was” and its terrifically arranged harmonies is next and then another snippet of a jingle about the listener being a pussycat and knowing so. “Where It’s At” is next to last on side one.
The college I went to was as far away from Long Island as I could get while still in the New York State college system. It was here that I found my tribe, my people at the college radio station and fulfilled dreams of being a disc jockey, occasionally slipping in some old radio jingles I recorded from a pirate radio station in Islip. Before they provided the soundtrack to crime shows, The Who made actual commercials for real products. This thrilled and astonished me. Later, as my knowledge of the band increased, I found out they did commercials for Jaguar that were not officially released and Coca-Cola, which aired in UK movie theaters before the feature.
When I interned at the Radio Advertising Bureau in 1984, I found an entire record of Coca-Cola jingles that The Supremes recorded. I taped it. Probably should have taken it with me, no one but me knew it was there. It was also during this internship where I had my first taste of a Walkman, which I wore during lunch hours walking the streets of Murray Hill and Turtle Bay looking for Kurt Vonnegut. Years later, a friend sent me a CD he burned of Coke jingles recorded by bands in the sixties, including The Supremes.
After the “Pussycat” jingle, the final note goes straight into and blends perfectly with the opening blast of the E chord in “I Can See For Miles.” This is the song that Townshend wanted to be a hit so, so bad. He had to settle for number 10 in the UK and 9 on the U.S. Billboard chart. It was their biggest hit single in the United States.
Side two starts off with a commercial for the Charles Atlas Weight Lifting Course and segues right into another lovely pop number, “I Can’t Reach You.” A song that becomes more poignant when I think about the lyrics, “I can't reach, tryin' to get on you, see, feel or hear from you,” and how it relates to my son. That line is also a portal to the band’s future.
Next is what I consider the final number of the pirate station part of the record. Entwistle’s “Medac” is about a teenager with high school skin issues, another song I could relate to. Which brings me to the album cover itself. On the back is a picture of John with a comely blonde woman with a caption satirizing the Charles Atlas course. A sad Keith is squirting a large tube of Medac pimple cream on his face. The front cover has Pete shoving a large stick of Odorono into his armpit. Poor Roger got sick after sitting in a bathtub of Heinz Baked Beans during his photoshoot. It was freezing cold, Roger said. Then they brought in a portable heater, which only made the situation worse.
From here the record gets very serious, as the opening organ notes of “Relax” begin. When the band performed it live, this song evoked an incredibly long jam with loud, extended guitar solos by Townsend. These performances in 1968-1969 turned The Who into the powerhouse live force they became renowned for in the 70’s, when they very well may have been the loudest rock band according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Entwistle’s “Silas Stingy” is my pick for the weakest cut on the record. Not that it’s a bad song, but it’s just not good enough to compete with the rest of the tracks.
“Sunrise” is one of the most gorgeous songs Townshend’s ever written. The foreshadowing of things to come is prominent during the bridge, when a few quiet chords of Pinball Wizard show up in a Tommy preview. It was a great song to play when I did overnights on my college radio station as I would hand over duties to the morning person, head to the dining hall for breakfast and go to bed - usually not awake enough to attend chemistry 101.
The album ends on one of the most ambitious and audacious songs in the band’s catalog. The words to “Rael” have the Chinese en masse invading Israel. A chilling number considering the Egypt and Israel Six Day War of 1967. And still, 50 years later, conflict occurs in the Middle East. Plus, the listener gets another preview of what Townshend had in store with “Tommy” (the story of an autistic young man) as snippets of “Amazing Journey” and “Overture” show up. It’s the finale of a record that took place just before the band’s creative peak, and Townshend not so subtly playing us all what was coming.
In a tribute to the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper,” some of the earlier releases of the album have a lock groove (which the listener could hear on manual turntables) that repeats “Track Records,” the band’s label at the time.
Over the years this record has stayed with me. It came with me in the backs of station wagons moving from Long Island to college in western New York. It joined me in Ohio through several apartments and homes in Columbus. It’s survived breakups, divorces and basement floods. It was never discarded after CD remix upgrades and various box sets but I did pick up the new double disc set on vinyl. My love of this record, the places where I have listened to this glorious music by The Who, continues 54 years after it’s release and 43 years after I heard all of it for the first time. It’s provided more long term memories than any prom could have. The Who “Sell Out” is an essential part of my life.
Ed Plunkett strives to be a writer of words. In a former life he was Chairman of the Word is Art Committee of the Columbus Arts Festival. He has published some books and audio of his work independently, along with some other pieces that appear in print or online. Ed is a seeker of finer things, be they guitars, or a good beverage. One of Ed’s life goals is to read in all of Ohio's 88 counties. He has a long way to go. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and son.