Topic: The Who, Be Lucky

[Pablo de Fleurs]

Yeah…I know, it’s only rock ‘n roll…

…(but I like it!)
;- D

#BeLucky @TheWho The Who turn 50

The Who - Be Lucky

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The Who unveil Be Lucky, their first new song in eight years

Song from their forthcoming 50th anniversary compilation refers to Daft Punk and AC/DC – and even features a Punkesque robotic voice


The Who’s first song in eight years explicitly references Daft Punk and AC/DC. Be Lucky, which will appear on the band’s forthcoming 50th anniversary compilation, claims the Australian rockers and the French DJs can both help you achieve your dreams.

“You wanna climb without a safety line/ AC/DC’s gonna be fine,” Roger Daltrey sings over Pete Townshend’s guitar riffs. Elsewhere in the song, he alludes to the commercial appeal of AC/DC’s biggest song: “If you want to want to sell/ you’ve got to kiss and tell/ And you’ve got to do a cover of Highway to Hell.”

The references to AC/DC are bittersweet, coming in the week it was announced the group’s founding guitarist, Malcolm Young, was having to leave the group owing to ill health.

As for Daft Punk, they are part of a similar refrain: “You want to climb without a safety line/ Daft Punk will tell you that it’s gonna be fine.” Soon an AutoTuned voice pipes up, mimicking Daft Punk’s robo-effect.

Ultimately, the Who’s entire song should probably be understood as a response to one of Daft Punk’s dance anthems. Listeners are invited to Be Lucky instead of told to Get Lucky, with an emphasis on taking creative risks and “making [things] your own”.

Be Lucky is the closing track on Who Hits 50, a two-disc set otherwise filled with tunes like Baba O’Riley and Magic Bus. Recorded with bassist Pino Palladino, Ringo’s son Zak Starkey on drums, and keyboard-player Mick Talbot, the song is the Who’s first new material since 2006’s Endless Wire. Although Townshend and Daltrey claimed this summer that they were hoping to record a complete LP, they have not announced plans for any other releases before they hit the road on a winter tour. Daltrey previously described these concerts as “the beginning of the [group’s] long goodbye”.

Royalties from Be Lucky will reportedly benefit Teen Cancer America, a US outgrowth of Daltrey’s successful UK charity, the Teenage Cancer Trust. The rest of the anthology is out on 27 October.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/sep/26/the-who-be-lucky-first-new-song-in-eight-years

[ToddF]

Not bad.  Better than anything on their last CD.

Pete Townshend is another of those that for whatever the reason, just lost his muse, from about Iron Man on.  Nothing he's done has been all that good.  This song is above the average, for the last 25 years.

[IronDioPriest]

I've never liked The Who. Unlike other classic artists I don't like (Hendrix, Dylan, Young, Joplin, Stones, Clapton, etc, etc, etc), I don't even appreciate The Who's contribution to music. Most of those other artists I can look at objectively and say that while I don't personally enjoy listening to them, I understand why their contribution was important. I can't say that about The Who. I don't get it.

I fully realize that that is my own problem, and that I am in the minority for my age group. But I can't get what I don't get.

[Pablo de Fleurs]

"But I can't get what I don't get."

Sounds like something Donald (known & unknown unknowns) Rumsfield would say 

To me, The Who were a great band to have around in college: Bowie, The Stones, Zeppelin, The Who (and later The Cars, Elvis Costello, early Tom Petty, The Jam, etc.) - whether it was booming over the frat-house stereo or in a dance club. Daltrey's "Won't Get Fooled Again" scream was/is a classic.

In Be Lucky, I'm hearing a lot of throwback (Substitute, Won't Get Fooled Again, My Wife, Pure & Easy - even some of Townsend's "Gonna' Get Ya'") - so for me it's a trip down memory lane.

[AlanS]

I've never liked The Who. Unlike other classic artists I don't like (Hendrix, Dylan, Young, Joplin, Stones, Clapton, etc, etc, etc), I don't even appreciate The Who's contribution to music. Most of those other artists I can look at objectively and say that while I don't personally enjoy listening to them, I understand why their contribution was important. I can't say that about The Who. I don't get it.

I fully realize that that is my own problem, and that I am in the minority for my age group. But I can't get what I don't get.

The only Janis Joplin I like is her early stuff with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Now that I think about it, all of those you listed were good in their early years. Then went to crap.

[Libertas]

I've never liked The Who. Unlike other classic artists I don't like (Hendrix, Dylan, Young, Joplin, Stones, Clapton, etc, etc, etc), I don't even appreciate The Who's contribution to music. Most of those other artists I can look at objectively and say that while I don't personally enjoy listening to them, I understand why their contribution was important. I can't say that about The Who. I don't get it.

I fully realize that that is my own problem, and that I am in the minority for my age group. But I can't get what I don't get.

The only Janis Joplin I like is her early stuff with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Now that I think about it, all of those you listed were good in their early years. Then went to crap.

The Who IIRC were the first really LOUD band, I think that is their primary claim to historical fame.  Clapton I can take in Yardbirds or Cream dosages, that pop-crap he spewed out on his own was uninspiring to me, it wasn't until he went back to Blues roots that I could listen again for any length of time.  Young (w/ or w/o Crosby, Stills & Nash) I don't care for at all.  Dylan is a good writer, his voice always left me wondering why he never got a lead signer who could, umm, sing.  Stones, meh.  Hendrix - again, some songs I can take a listen now and then, but I like his earlier Blues stuff better.  Led Zeppelin stayed pretty true to their sound which was heavily Blues influenced, they got overplayed at the time on radio (because there was nothing else to listen to that was new and because Disco sucked more than anything that has ever sucked in the whole world of sucking and if I heard it played peoples very lives would be in immenent danger of being ended!).

[Pandora]

... Hendrix, Dylan, Young, Joplin, Stones, Clapton ...

Not a big fan of the Stones, (although some of their stuff had a good beat and you could dance to it), Dylan, meh, although Lay, Lady, Lay is still good; can't stand! the rest, but Clapton is one of my favorites.

[trapeze]

Actually, besides being the first band to smash their guitars and drum set at the end of the show (not to mention destroying hotel rooms)  and, yes, being quite loud they were the originator of the rock opera.

This started with "A Quick One, While He's Away" which was a long piece made up of several short tunes with a common theme...it told a story. Later, they would expand this concept to album length with "Tommy." The culmination of this was seen with "Quadrophenia" which is my personal favorite Who album...I have the original vinyl LP with the picture book.

When Keith Moon died I never saw The Who the same way again. Later, when John Entwistle also died this feeling was emphasized. They can call the current incarnation "The Who" but for me it is essentially just Roger and Pete with some guys playing Who songs. Not saying it isn't good but for me it's not "The Who."

The Who Maidley 2

(the sound on this is awful but it's the vid that's important...you can download the studio version which sounds great)

[ToddF]

I've always accepted that SF Sorrow by The Pretty Things (a criminally underrated band) was the first rock opera, in 1968.  If you wiki it, they say a band called Nirvana (obviously not THAT Nirvana) did, in 1967.

That Rock and Roll Circus performance is definitely The Who at their live peak, before the lifestyle would start wearing them down, and eventually killing them.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhwie_the-who-a-quick-one_music

Not embedded, but better sounding, complete with Keith Richards intro, as The Who definitely upstaged the Rolling Stones, on the Rolling Stones own show.