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The Who's Weirdest Songs!
12:25 PM GMT 23/02/2009
Other bands wrote songs about boys, girls, sex and drugs. The Who wrote songs about cross-dressing children, spiders and the rise of Red China. Celebrating the Who cover of the April issue of MOJO magazine, we use the deluxe reissue of their Who Sell Out album as a springboard into their world of the strange, where French horns, comedy drinking songs and self-hating disco prevail.
Cue our idea of the 15 oddest Who songs. Maybe we've missed one or twelve, or have them all in the wrong order. As ever, your input is welcome.
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 12:25 PM GMT 23/02/2009
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dr. jekyll and mr. hyde
that motherland feeling (pete townshend demo)
now i'm a farmer
tommy's holiday camp
bucket t
Posted by Koren Kuntz at 2:21 PM GMT 24/02/2009 Report Abuse
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dogs
905
postcard
Posted by jwc at 4:14 PM GMT 25/02/2009 Report Abuse
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Dogs (Part 2)
A barking-mad instrumental.
Posted by -MB at 2:17 PM GMT 26/02/2009 Report Abuse
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Definitely Dogs Part 2. Was it a reply to the Beatles "Hey Bulldog"? (Or vice versa?). A blistering instrumental with a dog bark for a lyric. Barking mad indeed.
Cobwebs and Strange - Keith wrote it. Not sure if Yellow Submarine inspired it but this melody is worthy of Danny Elfman or the 3 Stooges. Later reworked for Heinz Baked Beans on The Who Sell Out.
Waltz For A Pig - Really the Graham Bond Organisation but credited to the Who, probably because they had nothing else available to put on the B side due to the falling out with Shel Talmy. Song credits go to Butcher. How weird is that?
Welcome (from Tommy) - The Who apparently had plans to make a children's album (Townshend would later do so with the Iron Giant). Some of the tracks on Happy Jack/A Quick One and Sell Out (Silas Stingy, Boris The Spider, Cobwebs and Strange, Spotted Henry, Happy Jack, Batman Theme) point in that direction but this would not be out of place on children's TV - or an album of songs from any religious cult. "Be one of us..." indeed! Or perhaps it was mocking religious cults - which was what Tommy tried to create in a misguided attempt to enighten everyone. After recording it for the album the band apparently excluded it from the live performances of Tommy. Perhaps word had reached their ears of Charles Manson's Family and the Tate/LaBianca murders and in their wake this was just too creepy/close for comfort to perform.
Posted by Frederick Harrison at 2:44 AM GMT 28/02/2009 Report Abuse
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A few off the top of my head:
Waspman (a rare Keith Moon vocal. Barking.)
Here For More (The Who do county and western. A rare Daltrey written track. The Who never did C+W again and Daltrey put "his pen" back in the drawer- where it belongs.)
905 (John Entwistle singing something about a robot. It's rubbish)
Faith In Something Bigger (The Who find god. Doesn't really work)
Now Im A Farmer (from around the same era as "Dogs". Thank god "Tommy" came along soon after)
And for out and out weirdness although technically not a Who outing...I'll go for the "Lisztomania" soundtrack by Daltrey.And as for the film......
Posted by Mick at 4:46 PM GMT 09/03/2009 Report Abuse
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'Pictures of Lily' certainly deserved to be on this list. It's about a father who gives his son some photos of a silent movie star only to have the boy (Pete?) fall in love with the women while jerking off to the photos ever night only to find out that she died years ago.
By the way,'Happy Jack' is about a donkey at an English seaside resort. Of course, that doesn't make it any less weird
Posted by MGC at 8:15 PM GMT 09/03/2009 Report Abuse
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pictures of lily is definitely weird...just a strange narrative...
i maintain baba o'riley is a weird song...a subsistence farmer (from a dystopian future) who decides to take a roadtrip, and tells his family not to look through the windows at a teenage wasteland? named after Mehar Baba and electronic composer Terry Riley with an O added to give it an Irish flavour! seems so preposterous/pretentious. and yet, a great song.
I also second A Quick One.
Oh, and Dogs is an awesome song!
Posted by Anonymous at 3:51 PM GMT 24/03/2009 Report Abuse
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Silas Stingy? Does no one esle think that song is just a little nutty?
Posted by Anonymous at 8:06 AM GMT 12/04/2009 Report Abuse
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RE: -MB
DOGS PART II--AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME WELL UNDER RATED PEICE OF GUITAR PLAYING BY TOWNSHEND. THE FIRST LEAD BREAK HE PERFORMS ON THE 12TH FRET IN THE KEY OF E IS COMPARABLE OR EVEN BETTER THAN ANYTHING SENSATIONAL HENDRIX OR CLAPTON DID. LISTEN TO IT CLOSE AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELVES. I'M NOT OVERLY A TOWNSHEND FAN, BUT I REALIZED THROUGH THE YEARS HEARING ABOUT ALL THE HENDRIX & CLAPTON HYPE HE (TOWNSHEND)WAS CONSIDERABLY UNDERATED BY BOTH CRITICS AND WRITERS AS A LEAD GUITARIST. TOWNSHEND OVERALL AND THIS RYTHIM RIFF SONG W/LEAD INTERVALS ARE BOTH WELL UNDER-RATED AND AN ABSOLUTELY SENSATIONAL PEICE OF GUITAR MASTERMIND. THNX. THAT'S CRITICAL DISTANCE ENOUGH, RIGHT?
Posted by Anonymous at 4:15 PM GMT 03/10/2009 Report Abuse
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doctor, doctor.
Posted by Anonymous at 11:49 PM GMT 07/02/2010 Report Abuse
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