Understanding Pinball Wizard 

Support Beverly Bunny on Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/weirdhat/beverly-bunny Watch this video on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/12tone-understanding-pinball-wizard Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) I should note that, while S.F. Sorrow is probably the first rock opera, I believe Tommy is the first completed project to be _billed_ as such. The term existed for a couple years prior, but as far as I know it was only applied to S.F. Sorrow retroactively, whereas Tommy was called a rock opera from the beginning. (The release dates are also close enough that it's plausible Townshend had not heard S.F. Sorrow before completing Tommy, so while there is some dispute as to whether he was inspired by it, it's entirely plausible that he came up with the idea separately. In fact, that'd be my guess.) 2) I decided not to get into it because I have way too many thoughts to fit concisely into this video, but there's a lot to be said on the question of whether or not a work like Tommy still has a place in modern culture, what with its pretty shoddy and caricatured depiction of disability and its pretty flippant, often gleeful portrayals of abuse. My stance is that I have pretty complicated feelings, but that Tommy is a work that's worth having complicated feelings about. There's a lot of these sorts of things from previous eras, and most of them are just bad, but Tommy feels like a more complicated case, with real artistic merit despite its flaws, so while I don't think we necessarily need to keep staging the whole thing, and I would ideally like to never hear Fiddle About again for the rest of my life, I do think it's worth making space for Tommy as a thing-that-was. That said, your mileage may vary, and I wouldn't blame anyone for coming to a harsher conclusion. It's not an easy piece of art to love. I dunno. Maybe some of this would've made it into an outro for the video if I hadn't decided to promote my friend's kickstarter instead, but whatever, the kickstarter is better. Go support Beverly Bunny, a work that's easy to uncomplicatedly enjoy without the sorts of nagging moral questions raised by Tommy. 3) Some of the clips I used for the intro have the echo in them, while others don't so to clarify, I used clips from the full song when the echo was relevant to the point I was making, and otherwise used guitar stems without it to make the harmony a little easier to hear. (And also maybe to avoid some copyright detection, but I don't think those clips are the ones most likely to cause headaches there, and as always it's fair use anyway.) 4) The Acid Queen does have some sus4s, it just doesn't use them in this same repeated way that I was talking about. I don't think the mere existence of an occasional sus4 is enough to identify a leitmotif. 5) Honestly I'm not that sold on the sus4-to-major motif representing recreation. That'd feel more right to me if it were just Cousin Kevin and Pinball Wizard, but 1921 complicates it. Although to be fair 1921 is also an outlier in terms of its usage of the motif, so maybe it wasn't really supposed to be part of it at all? That seems unlikely, though. I dunno. If you have a better idea let me know. 6) As far as I can find, the stage show of Tommy also uses Elton John's melody, not the original Daltrey one, but there were surprisingly few videos on RU-vid so I dunno, maybe some productions use the original. I kinda doubt it, though. 7) The other main distinction in Moon's drum parts are the cymbal accents on the 8th after beat 3, which sort of line up with parts of the riff sometimes, but are clearly just there 'cause he wanted to hit a cymbal, and I love that for him. Also, when he moves the fill to the end of the bar, he also flips the cymbals so they're accenting on beat 3 and the + of 1, so it really feels like he just forgot two beats somewhere. 8) When I said Daltrey _mostly_ ignores the F# chord, I was glossing over the C# in the bottom voice. That one does move, 'cause the B he was singing before would clash really hard with the A# in the harmony and also to give it a little melodic contour, but other than that the voices sit still. I originally talked about this in the script, but it was basically just a couple sentences of me listing note names and it killed the momentum so I cut it and am instead acknowledging the small caveat here.

"Am I hearing it because it's there, or because Elton John told me to look for it?" is a surprisingly versatile question..

Ironically, Townshend noted that Moon was the only drummer he could find in those days who could play well to a click.

19:57 If any drummer was going to make you throw your manuscript paper up in defeat, it was going to be Moon. And that is no criticism of either of you, either.

"What is a key but a miserable little pile of secrets?" Love your style 12Tone.

19:53 “No Thanks” has me dying

The Lebowski reference is just SITTING there, tying the room together, yet here we are... drawing a knot like some kinda human paraquat.

Someone should point out 18:05 "Orchestration matters. Who knew." Very nicely done.

The slides at the end of the intro are actually John Entwistle’s bass. Apparently he was always peeved when people assumed that the slides were Townsend’s work.

On October 5th 2006 I saw The Who live at the Calgary Saddledome, row 1, seat 16 right in front Of Pete Townsend and got a pick he tossed. I grabbed it with Swiss Army tweezers and placed it inside a card holder in my wallet. Now the ticket, wrist band and pick are encased in perspex,. The absolute best memory I have in my 55 years of life.

Eventually 12tone is just going to cover every major rock opera from the late 60s to the mid 2000s.

The way I hear the "sure plays a mean pinball" section has always been that the decline on "sure plays a mean" is the pinball sinking straight down the middle of the machine. No way to save it, even both flippers won't catch it, if you've played pinball you know the feeling. But there's no resolution in the line because of those next two notes. Sue, the ball was sinking on "sure plays a MEAN", but on that word Mean the plunder is already being grabbed. "PIN" is the plunger being pulled back, as the next ball is released, and "BALL" is the plunger released, shooting the ball back onto the field and keeping the game going without a second's pause. There's no resolution in the line because the point is that the game barely hiccups, it just keeps going. And then you're immediately right back up in the bumpers (where I always associated the 16th note sequences as being)

15:38 "what is a key but a miserable little pile of secrets" speaks deeply to my bassist heart.

As the intro progresses, Pete Townshend seems to migrate ahead of the beat, slightly. I think that is another way he is creating tension. It is subtle.

13:48 "This is what I want to hear, and it's there, but I can't hear it!" If this isn't Tommy in a nutshell. He can hear. Everyone wants him to hear. But the trauma makes him deaf to it.

🎶" The fill is gone.....the fill is gone away...🎸🎵"

It always felt to me like the Who were somehow four drastically distinct artists and sounds that they somehow were able to lash together into a cohesive sound and band. Moon being described as preposterous and allergic to a straight rhythm both are just objectively accurate. I've always loved how unique the Who sound, especially starting with Tommy and Who's Next and through even after the loss of Moon (though it's true no one could ever match him, they wisely chose to not match him, but match the rest of the band).

As my older brother was a massive Who fan, The Who were the main musical influence of my childhood, meaning I've always been familiar with most of their work. So it's always a bit strange for me to hear how other people see and experience their music.

Don't forget "A Quick One (While He's Away)" from the Happy Jack album. Townshend describes it as a mini-opera with real characters and a plot.

I'm the intersection of huge The Who fan and huge musical theatre kid. Really loved this vid! Made me want to see you analyze some Sondheim :)

Moon always thought he was the bands’ leader. The other three were just there to support him.

15:39 the way I audibly guffawed at that. This is why I enjoy these breakdowns so much. Not only can someone explain these songs on a technical level way more than I could, but also the references you're able to slide in there. Also, for the record, my first CD I bought was Kylie Minogue's Fever in 2001 at HMV in Canada. I'm right there with you.

No way!! I literally listened to this song just yesterday after having not listened to it in about a year, maybe more! What a coincidence, awesome :D

I am LOVING all of these older songs, I was listening to pinball wizard today, I haven’t listened to a crazy amount of the who so brb after marathoning all the albums

Whoa! Castlevania: Symphony of the Night reference halfway through. Sneaky. I love it!

Think we’re ever gonna get a look at songs from Quadrophenia, like all that build up to Love Reign O’er Me might be interested to explore.

No love for the bass?

12tone i am happy crying this is a near and dear tune to my heart (thank you rockband two) and it's so delightful to see you cover it :D you are very appreciated, thank you for a lovely thirty minutes

Another reason for all major could be simply to reflect the manically cheerful sounds of pinball machines.

the story i had heard was that there was a reviewer in melody maker magazine who had repeatedly panned the who, and that reviewer really liked pinball.

Love "The Pretty Things" shout out! One of the greatest bands that no one talks about. "SF Sorrow" is a great album, but my favorite of theirs is "Parachute"

In your background segment, you might have mentioned that he had already written two "mini-operas" for The Who, "A Quick One (While He's Away)" on that album, and "Rael" on the Sell Out album. And in fact the opening chord progression from "Pinball Wizard" had already been used in an earlier song, "I'm A Boy".

I think I've heard Daltrey and Townshend say that Keith Moon used to play along to the vocals.

I think one way to understand Keith Moon's drumming, is to sorta look at it as him playing the lyrics out, trying to accent the words, the syllables, and being funny and flamboyant (as he always is), it really gives the songs a lot of “feel”

Having only heard the couple of songs from Tommy that got noteworthy amounts of radio play, I somehow never realized that he isn't ACTUALLY deaf, dumb, and blind.

I know operas can have weird plots, but I had to pause ten minutes in just to process how weird Tommy apparently is. I guess I maybe should look it up, just out of curiosity or something.

Having grown up hearing this song via my dad, I'm very happy that you're covering it!

13:42 I've always heard the main melody that way. Until this video, I never grokked that the lower note was part of it, because the line flows so much more smoothly otherwise. So it's not just you.

Great video! A small note: at 24:26, Townshend changed the Key from B to D for the final verse, transposing the riff at the end as well. He then meanders on a Bb in the fade, whereas on live performances the group end on a sort-of half cadence of Amaj7

The Who had been my favourite band ever since seeing the live in 1966. Then they released an album named after me😎 My take on Mr Moons drumming is that he is doing background vocals on the drums. A lot of counterpoint and fills.

I'm pretty sure the sus4 thing is just because Pete Townshend loves sus4 chords. He's built other (portions of) songs entirely out of them, like "Bargain," and he likes to just kind of throw them in while playing as well (as far as I can tell). (Though of course that doesn't explicitly explain "Cousin Kevin," of course.")

The return to the intro, followed by the last verse, is all transposed into D major!!! The bridge ends on that nice tonicized D major chord as you pointed out before, but then it stays in D!!!

"Ain't got no distractions/Can't hear no buzzers and bells/Don't see no lights a-flashin'/Plays by sense of smell." Plays by sense of SMELL? That's ... crazy. That's just crazy. Anyway, three of my favorite things - Tigger, the Count from Sesame Street, and the Who's Tommy - all in one video. Ridiculous.

It's baffling that this video is 27 minutes long and never once mentions *the* defining moment of the song: _When the left track kicks in._

I noticed your Duchamps reference there. Tres cool. Hah! 🤓🤙

My dad just asked for this song on our road trip yesterday. What a coinkadink!

At 4:45, did anyone notice how this MIDI sounded like Everybody Wants to Rule The World? Seriously, the Fm7 to Em/F# sounded a lot like that! And around 15 1/2 minutes in, I've always heard the D in B-A-D-E as a return to B!

I appreciate the attempt at analyzing Moon's drug-addled fits on the drums.

This was insightful and inspiring. I'd love more videos on Pete Townshend's writing. His ability to combine heavy fuzz guitar riffs with these really Wagnerian motifs is fascinating to me, and makes me wish I knew more music theory. So many strange choices that somehow work out in the end.

I love " The Fill is Gone " by B.B. King

Townsend sure has a way with rhythm. That chord progression is so cool. Keith coulda only existed in the Who, imho. What a drummer!

It would have been so cool if you had included the version from the Broadway Tommy, which has just been revived. Having an entire orchestra and vocal ensemble available let them really lean into some of the voicings (that quick cymbal thing toward the end you said could be the pinball machine is actually done with the pinball machine sounds, for example). And Pete Townsend was involved in the creation of the show - so it’s arguably canon! (The subtle descending chromatic progression you mentioned is done by the whole ensemble and is much less subtle. You should give the cast album a listen if you haven’t, and I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on “Eyesight to the Blind”!)

Thank you for taking me back to my youth 12tone. We had a copy of Tommy, and I was always jamming to Pinball Wizard. Sometimes I would take the hamper and set it on its side to pretend that I was a pinball wizard while I was listening to Pinball Wizard.

22:40 That's basically the overture/underture's main thing as well.

I never thought 12tone would break down my favorite song. 🤗

The song that made me discover The Who and fall in love... I love tommy, and played a lot to pinballs in my teens... The Who is one of my favorite band with The Kinks and Pink Floyd...

20:04 that percussion part is really catchy. "It's almost like he's playing a completely different song." That's what made them the horrible who and has always delighted me about them.

Actually, the title for first rock opera probably belongs to Miss Butters by The Family Tree. It came out months before S. F. Sorrow, and told a complete story that you didn't need to read any elaborate libretto to follow. In fact, it was probably just as cohesive as Tommy, and even easier to understand. It's a good album, worth listening to. It's about a woman named Miss Butters, and it tells the story of her life from the cradle to the grave. It has some really good tunes, and even a connection to Harry Nilsson. Check it out. You'll like it. I disagree about modulating to E. It just feels like I going to IV by an unusual route.

thank you.

Is that Nick Lucid? Science Asylum? Awesome!

6:53 I do a lot of chromatic planing with major, minor, quartal and quintal chords when I freely improvise on piano, so I'm familiar with this type of tonality.

A video on I Appear Missing by QOTSA would be cool

12:56 this is what I've always heard as the main melody-to me that unresolved ending feels like the narrator realizing he has no idea what "that deaf dumb blind kid" is actually capable of

One thing to note - the riff is VERY COOL to play, and it only works if you accent the low E right.

Could you do an analysis of Kashmir by Led Zeppelin?

Recently went to see Tommy on Broadway. Frickin amazing.

Silas Stingy is one of my favorites!!

Smooth intro!!

Great song!

Hey! You’re good at drawing, 12tone! 💕

I love this song! I've been playing it on my guitar for 40 years.

12:28 The first time I heard this song is the Kaiser Chiefs cover at the 2012 London Closing Ceremony, and the lead singer sings D^ B B A F# B, so that's how I hear that line.

This is one of the greatest songs ever written, it's so rich.

I feel like I was exposed to a whole new world via this video

does anyone else hear the electric guitar accompanying the acoustic in the intro as going up in a whole step from A-B rather than octaves on B?

I never expected to hear a guy who runs a physics channel on this channel.

So glad you mentioned the Elton John version. 'Cause to me, that's the version I prefer, honestly. I caught the film version of Tommy back in the day, and when I listened to the album version, I was honestly a little disappointed. I mean, you can't compete with Elton John, and Tina Turner as the Acid Queen. I mean, come on, perfection, right there!

You missed out on "You're a Pinball Wizard, Tommy"

Small correction Tommy's parents didn't try to convince him he was deaf and blind they coerced him into believing he didn't hear or see his father killed his mother's lover and then Tommy goes into a dissociative state and becomes deaf, dumb and blind. Also it was John Entwistle who did the slides not Pete Townshend.

every musician need a close friend who's an animator

Is there a dictionary or encyclopedia that compiles *all chord progressions?

14:37 that hyper detailed elephant is just so wrong

The elton john version is something else bruh. Gotta love it. Bro chose thr perfect song to Elton Johnify. Pinball Wizard a classic. Thank you Who 🔥

Watcher Knight!!! (err, and I guess The Who is pretty cool also!)

24:22 I was waiting for you to pull the rug out and say "but wait did you notice that this time the fast acoustic strumming is in D instead of B" and you never pointed it out.... Am I alone in this?

I recommend you do a video about Sunny Came Home by Shawn Colvin. It's a weird, but entertaining song.

Thank you.

That last verse is in D, making the almost key change into an actual key change 😊

Tricked him into thinking he was deaf and blind? My reading was always that the murder of his father combined with their immediate demands that he didn't see or hear anything he went into a psychosomatic isolated state of deafness and blindness, which is why none of the doctors (or others) can help him, because it was a psychological damage, which just keeps getting repeated through his whole life. I'd say the film just kinda makes this super clear, yeah?

good video

Are you trying to say that makes you old?? I was an adult when that came out if it helps

YES

7:00 - My eyes are bleeding with that "prism"... Isaac Newton ! Pink Floyd ! Help us !

I may have heard Elton John's version first too. If have been 9 when it was released as a single in UK.

Is that a Bondi cigar? 😂🎵

But what about escalator over the hill?

24:25 you missed the fact that the verse progression changes keys to D major here.

I did NOT have 12tone pinned as a hollow knight fan (16:59)

PINBALL?!?!?!

Hi @nick lucid/science asylum as Pete Townsend ;)