Who #15: One-two-three-four-five-six-in-tact

One month of THE WHO BY NUMBERS on a baby-blue Victrola.

I spent spring and summer 2023 eyeing a copy of The Who By Numbers in the record shop down the street from me. After that I could look at it any old time I liked, in the comfort of my own flat.

The guy hanging out with the guy who runs the shop—the Jack ‘Schwarz’ of the scene, if you will—looked amused when I coyly asked to see that record hanging in the window. So would I, if a person who did not fit a band’s target demographic of age or gender or, frankly, height waltzed in expressing an interest. But I got it for a couple € less than the asking price. A bargain.

The hole left in the window display by the author's purchase.

I didn’t play it that first night, mainly because, in the time it took me to get home from an evening at an art gallery with a friend, start dancing around the room as is my wont, whack my ankle really hard against the bedpost, clean up the surprising amount of blood, and settle into bed with my foot elevated wondering how I’d managed to injure myself performing for MYSELF…I didn’t want to disturb the neighbors with a record on the turntable, even on a Friday.

So I played it the next night. It isn’t long, about 37 minutes. Which is why I repeated it the next night, and the next. Night five gave me the idea to make an experiment of it. What would I learn by listening to all ten songs every night for a month straight?

Before buying a physical copy of the LP, I knew I liked “Slip Kid” and “Squeeze Box.” As for the rest, I remember sitting on the train executing that dear ritual of scrolling through and either half-listening or trying to decide within the first twenty seconds if you’re engaged, which, if you have to decide, you’re not. But putting a piece of vinyl on a turntable is its own ritual, and it demands commitment. You WILL start at the beginning, you WILL listen all the way through, and you WILL pay attention. And you’re inclined to participate, because you’ve chosen to go across the room and put the thing on the other thing and drop the needle on the thing and then go back across the room and give yourself up to whatever sounds come out. It’s absurdly simple, but it involves you.

By Numbers (a source of bizarre inspiration in itself) is an even less happy album than most, maybe to be expected as Pete wrote it on the eve of his thirtieth birthday. This milestone can engender identity crises in the most well-adjusted of people—and then you have Pete Townshend, for whom an identity crisis is just Tuesday. So these songs are a lot. I read that, when he played the demos for the band, Keith walked over and gave him a hug. Hence I call them Pete Townshend Needs a Hug Songs. But they’re also funny, occasionally ridiculous, containing lyrics that I cannot sing with a straight face, so I commend Roger for selling them. Spending so much time with them could be trying but felt increasingly necessary in the face of, well, death.

I’ll let the essay voice take it from here. It gets real. That’s the ‘Oo for you.

***

I wasn’t setting out to conduct an experiment when I fired up the turntable the night of August 12, 2023. Sure, I anticipated reaping the fruits of a trip to the record shop down my street, the fruits I’d eyed for months in its window on treks home from bleary club nights. But it was a need to stay off an ankle I’d hurt dancing around my flat that started me listening when I did. And then it was the art, and life’s imitation of it, that made me keep it up.

I’d been obsessing over The Who all year, for the first time, thanks to some strategic placements from my friendly AI companion. I was fertile ground for the demos and the demons and the drama. I flirted with the operas but fell hard for the singles. A friend and I saw Townshend and Daltrey on their summer European tour, orchestra in tow. The set included nothing from The Who By Numbers, not to its detriment. But upon further exploration I began to perceive a missed opportunity, even as I understood why these songs might not be the most popular with the audience or the band. (They didn’t perform “Imagine a Man” until 2019, 44 years after the album’s release.) It’s an oddity, easily overlooked between 1973’s massive Quadrophenia and 1978’s momentous Who Are You. Still, from the slinking intro of “Slip Kid,” over which can be heard the faint shout of “one two three four five six in-tact,” it compelled me.