The Who Sell Out 50 years later: song by song discussion

I mentioned him having played on the early version of "Mary Anne", as well as organ on several other tracks.

 

Beautiful singing on "Relax." The song has a laid back psychedelic feel to it, but then intensifies during the instrumental section from about 1:30 to 2:00, before returning to the original groove to wrap things up.

 

Armenia 9/10
Mary Anne 9/10
Odorono 9.5/10
Tattoo 9.5/10
Our love was, is 9/10
I can see for miles 9.5/10
I can't reach you 9/10
Relax 9/10

One wonderful song after another. And the songs flow so efortlessly, with a stylistic unity. Unlike other exceptional records of the time, e.g. Buffalo Springfield again, this is not a collection of great songs of diverse genres.

It is clear the group and the individual members are at the top of their game, with supreme confidence, playing and singing as if nothing else mattered (for a short while, nothing really did).

Notwithstanding what may follow, already a top album of all time.

 

I don't think I've ever heard this before, do you mean the adverts that appeared on the 1995 releases originally had defined places on the second side and then a decision made to remove them? Does anyone know which ones were intended to go where?

 

I'm referring to the promo LP tracklist posted earlier, where the ads are given titles and are part of the track listing:

Oddly, none of them are "featured tracks" (in all caps like "Heinz").

 

"Relax" - yet another great track.

 

Ah, that's a shame - I thought for a minute there had been a tracklist featuring ads for the second side. Thanks for clearing it up for me

 

I wouldn't say it was ever my least favorite track, however the live version from the Fillmore East show definitely raises it a bit more with me.

 

Yes. As opposed to "Tattoo" at Leeds, I really like the Fillmore version of "Relax" better than the studio version.

 

Don't know if anyone has the great compilation Psychedelic Commercials but it has a bunch of unsung psych music that were used in the late 60's. A few years ago, I put together a fake radio station with a long playlist of psych hits and added the commercials but there was so much music on the commercials without much actual product mention that it blended right in.

https://www.amazon.com/1960s-Psyche...97809&sr=8-1&keywords=psychedelic+commercials

 

The Charles Atlas commercial is probably the best on the album. And the Medac jingle is also fun. All they really had to do was move Medac down two songs, and the concept would have been pretty much complete.

 

Hmmm. I’ll listen for that, thanks!

 

That's consistent FWIW with the writing credits and CD 'original album' track arrangement (on the 2009 Deluxe at least). "Heinz" & "Medac" are the only 2 commercials on the album proper with separate writing credits, and the only 2 that are 'authored' as separate tracks. All the other ads are combined with one of the regular songs as a single track and can't be played/isolated separately. It appears those 2 were considered copyrightable compositions on their own right.

It's interesting maybe that these are both John compositions, so maybe that required them to be listed separately for copyright purposes, since the others are combined with Pete songs IIRC. Or the simple fact that they were longer and more unique than the others.

Mark

 

Recorded: October 1967 at De Lane Lea Studios

"Silas Stingy" is the only non-ad song on the album by John Entwistle, a typical Ox-penned story (or fable, in this case) in the guise of "Boris the Spider".

 

As fun as this song was, having ads to bookend it would have helped so much, I always felt the chorus (and song) dragged on a bit too long. Still, there's some great rhymes in there ("'cause soap costs a lot, and the dirt kept him hot"), and the vocal effect on the "he bought a safe to put the box in" is pretty interesting. John's french horn fits in well here too.

 

Inevitably the brilliance would diminish sooner or later. A good song, Silas Stingy is nowhere near the level of the rest of the album. Stylistically it is very different as well.

 

I recall reading somewhere that Pete's songs often have odd characters, but "Silas Stingy" (as well as "Whiskey Man" and "Boris the Spider") shows that John did this too.

 

Can't forget "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", based on a certain in-band character.

 

Going back to Mary Anne for a minute, is it correct that there are four studio versions? The acoustic version on "Sell Out," the US single B-side version, the one referred to as the Mirasound version which first appeared
on the 1995 reissue and has Al Kooper on organ, and then the version on the reissued "Odds n Sods" which from what I have read may be the B-side version remixed with more prominent keyboards, but different from the Mirasound version.

 

In the booklet from the 1995 CD reissue of "Sell Out," there are some quotes from Kooper about it. He mentions an incident where some of the master tapes got left on a table and thrown away, and they were retrieved but compromised.
The engineer told Pete "sometimes these things just happen." Then, according to Kooper, Pete picked up a chair and threw it through the control room glass partition, then calmly looked at the guy and said "don't worry, sometimes these
things just happen."

 

I think Ray Davies did something similar when a bit of a master ("Supersonic Rocket Ship" for all you Kinks lovers out there) was erased.

 

Back to "Armenia" briefly

 

A story which Chris Huston, the engineer, has debunked. (Page 117 of Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere to be precise)

 

So Sell Out conceptually runs out of steam at this point (the 95 CD tries to help by dropping in the demo for "Rotosound Strings" before "Silas Stingy") but that's never been a issue with me. Not when the next track deserves the breathing room it gets but I'm getting ahead of myself. (In fact, here I come now. Wait, what?)

 

This was "Rael", which is missing the first few seconds due to this incident I believe.