In March 1981, the Who released the first album of their post–Keith Moon era, Face Dances. The melodies mirrored the band’s precarious state, with members caught under rip tides of alcohol and cocaine, but the songs also portrayed the general unease and despair of the early 1980s. The whole disc relayed the sense of dread that spread in the early hours of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Two weeks after Face Dances got shipped to stores, a madman tried to assassinate the former actor and California governor. In the Who’s homeland of Great Britain, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher presided over 10 percent unemployment; hunger strikes and riots erupted that spring. In SoCal, the band’s tunes resonated with the restlessness of a certain twenty-three-year-old Wayward Westside Teen.
To this day, I find myself drawn to the final cut off Face Dances. The better-known single, “You Better You Bet,” took up more radio space, but “Another Tricky Day” conveys a deeper meaning. Bright, crisp power chords drive potent feelings, from disappointment to futility to reassurance, dispatched by the innovator of that technique, singer-songwriter Pete Townshend.
Townshend essentially invented power chords in a band with only one guitarist. Led Zeppelin also limited itself to one guitar player, but Jimmy Page’s sinewy solos overshadowed his raw-edged riffs and finely textured layers. Townshend’s main thrust is the sustained suspended chord, a diamond-tough pillar of rhythm compared to Page’s drifts through the seven seas of lead. The closer on Tommy, “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” with its unyielding “listening to you” chorus, delivers the same emotional payoff as the solo in Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” So does the solid rhythm on the Who’s “My Generation,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” and “Baba O’Riley.”
None of this might’ve meant much if Pete hadn’t become such an exquisite songwriter. When Roger Daltrey belted those anthems into the rafters, accompanied by John Entwistle’s dazzling bass work and Keith Moon’s frenetic drumming, all four members of the Who etched their way into rock immortality.
When the first notes of “Another Tricky Day” strike your ears, you’re captured by Pete’s sparkly rhythm. The effervescent tone maintains an uplifting tempo, at a lively 113 beats per minute. But it soon takes on a sense of frustration, saying “You can’t always get it when you really want it.” But this isn’t the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The Who take a more ponderous route through the travails of the human experience and eventually preach equanimity: “We go down and we come up again.”
I hear John Wooden teaching his UCLA basketball team—and the whole country— “All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.” The Who went beyond the Stones’ statement that we get what we need. The Who tell us that “this is you having fun, getting burned by the sun.” That message struck me—a SoCal sunworshipper who looked for the warm rays to clear my messy face—back in the angst of my teenage dream. It explained that, like a tide that ebbs and flows, pain is the price we pay for our peak on the other side of the pleasure extreme.
Townshend lets us know that hardship can serve as a valuable asset on the path to personal evolution if you “dance while your knowledge is growing.” He prescribes a dose of realism when he reminds us that we “can’t expect to never cry,” then grows optimistic because “rock and roll will never die.” We all recognize that refrain from Neil Young’s 1979 sensation, “Hey Hey, My My,” though it must be mentioned that Pete penned a similar theme in “Long Live Rock” back in 1972 (unreleased as a single until 1979).
Daltrey and Townshend’s harmonies and alternating vocals propel the robust pulse of “Another Tricky Day.” Produced by Eagles mastermind Bill Szymczyk, it doesn’t come across as a slick commercial product. It’s a full-circle statement that brightens up an otherwise depressing LP.
The middle section in this song, like so many by Pete Townshend, winds its way to a philosophical footing. “The world seems in a spiral. Life seems such a worthless title.” Ah, but redemption awaits in our ability to bring the heat through the music we need: “Break out and start a fire y’all. It’s all here on the vinyl.”
The bridges in Townshend’s songs are unabashedly brilliant. They serve as centerpieces, peel back hidden layers, and reveal secret emotions behind lyrical journeys. So much so they deserve their own post.
Stay tuned for the fourth edition of the Song of the Week, coming soon.