Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
A Quick One, While He's Away (1966)
The problem with being a classic rock act that's been around for 60 years is that you tend to become old hat to a degree. Your big songs have been played to death for decades to the point where even diehard fans don't want to hear them anymore. But when you play concerts (if you're still playing concerts), they want to hear those same old songs.
The Who has certainly been down that road. They've written some of the greatest rock songs of all time, half of the original members have passed away, their big hits have been licensed endlessly to TV shows, movies and commercials and they were still touring as of a few years ago. Fortunately, they've got a deep catalog of excellent songs that don't get beaten to death and still sound fresh.
We're digging way back to before I was born for this one. It was 1966 and the Who were preparing their second album. They had another 10 minutes to fill and manager Kit Lambert encouraged Pete Townshend to write something longer, so he came up with "A Quick One, While He's Away," a 9-minute suite of mini-songs about a girl who has an affair while her lover is away. The band ended up calling the album A Quick One (although they changed it to Happy Jack in the U.S., where the song of the same name was a hit).
"A Quick One, While He's Away" was Townshend dipping his toe into writing a rock opera (along with the songs "I'm a Boy" and "Disguises"); it featured six distinct movements, starting with an a capella section with all four band members singing. Frontman Roger Daltrey sings the next two sections, changing his voice from a low register to his normal voice. Bassist John Entwistle portrays Ivor the Engine Driver in that section, followed by another harmony section and then Townshend sings lead on "You Are Forgiven," the final movement.
The Who were already honing their reputation as an amazing live band and incredible versions of this song are found on their great live album Live at Leeds and on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (which was only released in 1996; they blow away every other act in the all-star show).
"A Quick One" was an early taste of what was to come from the Who. Their next album, 1967's The Who Sell Out, was a masterful concept record paying tribute to pirate radio stations and included jingles and fake ads between songs, as well as another mini rock opera called "Rael." Townshend then wrote probably the most famous rock opera ever, Tommy, which came out in 1969 and eventually became a movie and a Broadway musical. And then, well, I don't need to go into the rest of the Who's career, but they did a lot of interesting stuff.
It was never released as a single (probably because it was 9 minutes long), but "A Quick One" definitely ranks with the Who's best songs. The band stopped playing it after 1970, but brought it back for their 50th anniversary tour in 2014.
The "You Are Forgiven" section was used in the movie Rushmore, and the song has been covered by the likes of Green Day, My Morning Jacket and Graham Coxon.
Thankfully, the song still retains its power, especially the live version from the Rock and Roll Circus, which is amazing. Watching the still-youthful band bashing it out perfectly in front of contemporaries like the Stones, the Beatles and Clapton is exhilarating.
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