Pete Townshend wrote this. It existed mostly in his head while they were recording it, and the other members of The Who had no idea how most of the story would end until they finished it. This was the last song written for Tommy. Townshend wrote it when he found out influential UK rock critic Nik Cohn was coming to review the project.
Townshend knew Cohn was a pinball fanatic, so he put this together to ensure a good review. Cohn gave it a great review, and pinball became a main theme of the Rock Opera.
The character Tommy played pinball by feeling the vibrations of the machine. Townshend liked how that related to listeners picking up the vibrations of the music to feel the story. This was the most famous and enduring song from the Tommy project. The Who performed this at Woodstock in The song was still fairly new, so many in the crowd did not recognize it.
The Who were given the early morning slot, so they ended up playing this as the sun came up. Following this, Townshend, as Tommy's principal composer, discussed the album with Cohn and concluded that, to lighten the load of the rock opera's heavy spiritual overtones Townshend had recently become deeply interested in the teachings of Meher Baba , the title character, a "deaf, dumb, and blind" boy, should also be particularly good at a certain game.
Knowing Cohn was an avid pinball fan, Townshend suggested that Tommy would play pinball, and Cohn immediately declared Tommy to be a masterpiece. Template:Citation needed The song "Pinball Wizard" was written and recorded almost immediately. The single version was slightly sped up and runs to , whilst the natural length album version runs to This song is one of the band's most famous live songs, being played at almost every Who concert since its debut live performance on 2 May The live performances rarely deviated from the album arrangement, save for an occasional jam at the end sometimes leading to another song.
Bootleg recordings show that this song has been known to last as long as 8 minutes at a concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London on 3 February , although live versions lasting as long as that are extremely rare. This version was released in as a promotional single only in the US, and in in the UK, where it reached number 7.
John's version uses a piano as the song's centerpiece in place of the acoustic guitar in the original in the film, John's character is shown playing his pinball machine via a small piano keyboard , and features additional lyrics specially written by Townshend for the movie version, as well as a subtle inclusion of musical phrases from The Who's s hit " I Can't Explain " during the outro similarly, The Who's later cover of Elton John's " Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting " included parts of " Take Me to the Pilot ".
Unlike most of the soundtrack's music, which featured various combinations of The Who and some of the era's best session players, Elton John used his own band Dee Murray , Nigel Olsson , Davey Johnstone and Ray Cooper and producer Gus Dudgeon for the track. General Comment I'm sure the members of The Who know as well as you do that a deaf, dumb, and blind kid could never play pinball that well. But that's the whole point. A kid that does something impossible.
Yeah, it's ridiculous, but it's a great song and I think that its absurdity is a big reason why. Yeah, it would never happen, but it's still a kickass and weird idea. Shaun2oo3 on April 16, Link. General Comment Actually, Tommy could play pinball if he just kept hitting the flippers non-stop. Anyways, Pete wrote this song for Nik Cohn, as was already stated.
Although it's a sell-out, I still love it. How couldn't you? General Comment Toomuchmagicbus - I've seen the movie many, many times. If you read the inserts in the album, it says that this song was put in mostly as an afterthought to buy over an important reviewer who was obsessed with pinball.
General Comment petes mentor, meher baba, taught that people cant perceive god if they can perceive earthly things. Halfway through recording the album, rock critic nik cohn gave the work-in-prgoress a mediocre review. PJ10 on June 18, Link. General Comment Someone brought this up to me, and I'm repeating it here because it's worth a shot: could Tommy possibly be autistic rather than deaf and blind?
The album never says that, but it would explain the pinball thing. Ana Byrd on April 23, Link. Ana Byrd. General Comment Kafziel, from my understanding Tommy wasn't really deaf, dumb, and blind - he could see but didn't really understand what he was seeing, and he could hear - it just didn't make much if any sense to him. By dumb, I believe he meant mute.
I could be wrong, but how would Tommy be staring in mirrors if he were really blind?
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