The germ of the opera in fact came from a single, “Glow Girl,” which was never released. Pieces from a projected bigger work appeared on A Quick One and The Who Sell Out, but Tommy, which took two years to complete, owes little to these.
Pete has often spoken of his opera in the past. The opera is, apart from being some of the best rock yet, a statement of Townshend’s philosophy. Born during the First World War, he becomes blind, deaf and dumb after seeing a murder by his parents in a mirror, becomes a pinball champion, reaches a state of grace, regains his senses and starts his own religion, is eventually discarded by his disciples somewhere in the far distant future, finds himself as isolated as he was in the beginning. For the first time, a rock group has come up with a full-length cohesive work that could be compared to the classics. And now we have a double album set that’s probably the most important milestone in pop since Beatlemania. Pete Townshend‘s been talking about doing his opera for years.
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