In the summer of 1968, The Who were touring America for the second time that year. For one thing, they needed the money - they hadn't really had a hit recording in the U.S. to that point, despite releasing The Who Sell Out in 1967, which is now considered a classic. After one of the shows on that tour, at San Francisco's Fillmore West, Pete Townshend gave a fascinating interview to Rolling Stone magazine wherein he discussed everything from the instrument-smashing ("It doesn't get to be a drag to talk about it. Sometimes it gets to be a drag to do it..."), to the fact that a lot of his songwriting was done on airplanes. And it is interesting to note that the best songs on Sell Out feature aerial imagery: "I Can't Reach You", "Our Love Was", "Sunrise", and "I Can See for Miles", and that they are meant to contrast with the advertisements, jingles and mundane concerns of commerce and daily life that are so brilliantly parodied on the rest of the album. He was obviously looking for some kind of transcendence in the clouds.
Something else is happening, as well - certain themes, both musical and lyrical, point to what was to be their next record: "We've been talking about doing an opera... called Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy," said Townshend, and he goes on to talk about it in great detail. It's one of the few interviews I've ever read where an artist discusses a work-in-progress without reservation. As I mentioned earlier, it's fascinating, and I wish more artists would do it. Maybe it's superstition or something. Anyway, the album he was talking about turned out OK; as a matter of fact it's one of the greatest works of art that rock and roll has ever produced. I'll be writing about it tomorrow.