There were two extraordinary moments from Roger on this album. The first was on ‘One Life’s Enough’, a slow ballad about acceptance, and the simple pleasure of making love. I thought this would be a song I would sing, as filler really, something to create some relief. Roger sang it himself, beautifully and tenderly. It’s one of my favourite vocal performances from him, equal to his discovery of that falsetto voice he had first used so brilliantly on Tommy.
The second was ‘Cry If You Want’. Again I thought I might have to sing this one, or at least share it with him. I’d tried to sing it a few times for the Chinese Eyes solo album and never pulled it off. Roger had learned the torrential stream of words by heart before he did the vocal, and he nailed it, almost fainting for lack of breath, the words come so thick and fast.
Glyn Johns wanted me to sing ‘Eminence Front’, probably the most radio-friendly track on the album. He insisted on using the first take, and I always felt I could have sung it better. The album was recorded very quickly indeed, in less than a month. In hindsight it is actually a very good album, but the slightly provisional mood it conveyed was belied by the truth: there would not be another Who studio record for a very long time.
The first Who shows of the tour were in Birmingham for two nights, then we headed for the US. At Shea Stadium we had two performances lined up, and I was interviewed for a TV show in a limo on the way to the gig. I didn’t usually ride in ghastly American stretch limos, and accommodating a TV crew while pretending it wasn’t there felt terribly contrived. The Who played pretty well on this tour, but it was being billed as our ‘Farewell Tour’, and I wasn’t about to argue.
The tour was highly lucrative, achieving one of the highest grosses of our career. Long before it was over, everyone in our circle knew that I would announce that I was leaving the band. It also became clear that a peculiar crime had been perpetrated. The Who had gone down, but not in flames. There had been no glorious on-stage heart attack, no grandly tragic hotel-room overdose, no suicide; nothing. Nothing I had done on stage had incited Roger to bash my head in; he had never felt the desire to walk off, or to complain to the press about my overly long solos, or any other self-indulgences.
I played according to the rules, and there were no diversions. I wasn’t guilty of anything that might have prompted the inevitable end, but neither did I attempt to send us out in a blaze of glory. That could have caused me terrible problems in the future – an Elysian place in which I hoped I’d never have to work with The Who ever again.
I had been a bore. At least, that had been my plan, and for quite some time it worked pretty well.
In New York, on 11 October 1982, I was contacted by Henry Mount-Charles, who worked at the prestigious British publishing house Faber & Faber and wanted to offer me his job there as he was moving back to Ireland. I was flattered and intrigued, and arranged to meet Henry’s boss Matthew Evans when I got back to London in the short November break. I became friends with Matthew very quickly.
During this time I also had dinner with Sir Freddy Ashton, who wanted to talk about his godson Kit Lambert. I told him how much I missed Kit. ‘I need to write about him,’ I said, ‘not just talk about him and tell funny stories.’
‘Then write about him,’ said Sir Freddy.
‘A love poem?’ I was being a little facetious, but Sir Freddy leaned forward and put the ball back in my court.
‘If love is the issue, a sonnet would be in order.’
So I wrote this sonnet for Kit:
My love stands in the archways of my night,
Come out into the alley of my day.
Your ghost is mine, in life you stood away,
Come near let me embrace you near the light,
To touch your face so healthy, once so white,
And hold you in my arms is all I pray;
For long I’ve plumbed the sadness you display,
To hear you laugh was always my delight.
We loved, but never lovers were to be,
Yet in the darkened city we might meet
To talk again in sweet complicity;
Svengali fashioned neophyte Trilby.
But music, once of heart, is now of street;
And genius, once of you, is now of me.
With The Who finally laid to rest as far as I was concerned, I was starting the second year of deep psychotherapy, and there were many amends and apologies to be made: many old friends to be taken to lunch, many businesses to unwind, including Eel Pie Books. I was living at The Anchorage now, with Karen, and I converted the basement bedroom into an artist’s studio, with a small recording studio in an adjacent room. The emphasis was as much on the visual and graphic arts as composing. Oceanic was being revitalised or reoriented, with a plan to convert the place into a multimedia video lab. I decided to buy a motor-yacht large enough to undertake long passages, so we could have some adventures as a family.
I wanted to build a new creative vision for myself and facilitate it with physical resources: studios, materials, finance and time. At the end of February 1983 I wrote a very simple treatment for my next solo album. I wanted to provide all the necessary artwork myself, so I began painting again in earnest.
On holiday in Cornwall the previous year I had composed a basic musical theme I called ‘Siege’. It was fairly simple, but it lent itself particularly well to variations. I had been inspired by the idea of a soul besieged in a magnificent castle, surrounded by the litter of the ages, the detritus of faded wealth. There was no clear plot, but none was necessary for what I had in mind. I was producing music, stories and lyrics, and even took a few photographs again after a long break from doing so, to create a kind of ‘mood-board’ for the project. With the help of producer Helen ‘Spike’ Wilkins, I started gathering together my demos of various released and unreleased Who songs, as well as demos of entirely new material, which I would release in a collection called Scoop.
I was still writing short stories, or coming up with ideas for them. One from February 1982 is: Man who makes love to a girl who disguises her orgasm by singing scales. I don’t know whether I was hoping to emulate Jorge Luis Borges or Monty Python, but the images I produced began to get more light-hearted. I painted several pictures of Pete Wylie of Wah! to accompany my lyric for ‘Brilliant Blues’. I combined the faces of my wife and her sister Virginia, and surrounded the image with angels. I painted a good portrait of Mr Freedom in the style of Peter Blake. I also took Polaroids from the television screen, and made one good collage called I Didn’t Hear You, about domestic violence.
I had dropped the Goldhawk Club manifesto, the idea that grew from ‘I Can’t Explain’ and that demanded my work be an empty vessel in which the audience could find itself. Instead, I needed to find myself. Painting and drawing had become a cathartic new outlet, but I was still making music in the old manner. I would noodle around on a guitar or piano, then put down a simple cassette demo. At The Anchorage I used my basic four-track cassette Portastudio rig for demos. I still had a professional studio in Soho, the high-end SSL suite at Oceanic and a good studio workroom with a concert grand piano at Cleeve. My work in my new home at The Anchorage was developmental and private, and coming along very well.
Minta, about to turn twelve in April 1983, was always curious when I worked behind closed doors. Sometimes she would creep down when I was out and look through my artwork and stories, perhaps indicating that she was still worried for me. Emma, a couple of years older, was already running a musical band, The Launderettes, made up of friends from St Paul’s School for Girls. When I made some recordings with them it was clear that Emma was immensely talented. She was also starting to look very beautiful. The smile at the edge of her eyes had returned. I felt that I was falling in line, and getting things right.
I had found a boat in Mallorca, an old 65-foot Scottish-built Herd Mackenzie called Ferrara, capable of travelling several thousand miles. Our first adventure was in the Greek islands. We flew to Athens to meet the boat, then travell
ed east to visit two or three islands before the weather got very windy and we became storm-bound in Nisos Syros. Minta demonstrated her skill as a linguist by chatting to the local tobacconist in basic Greek, which she had picked up in a few hours. I felt I was embarking on a new life, in which my pleasures would be – if not strictly conventional – at least not artificially induced.
A few days before my 38th birthday in May 1983 I went to see Roger at his lovely Tudor house in Sussex. Driving there, I thought back to 1962 when I had walked with my guitar case to Roger’s doorstep; I remembered his girlfriend staggering towards me, and his nonchalance at her ultimatum. Sod her. Come in. I thought of how badly I had wanted in back then, and how much I wanted out now. This time I confirmed what Roger already guessed: I wouldn’t go on tour with The Who any more.
Back in 1962 I had expected Roger to break down in tears that he had been deprived of that angry teenage blonde goddess. But he didn’t then, and he didn’t now. I said I would consider working on special projects with him – charity shows, musicals, anything but rock tours. He seemed receptive.
Can you play ‘Man of Mystery’ by The Shadows? OK, see you at Harry’s.
It seemed to have ended as quickly as it had begun. I expect the same thought occurred to Roger. In my notebook, I wrote:
‘I proceed to freedom.’
22
STILL LOONY
I met Robert McCrum, Faber’s managing editor, and we spoke about a press conference to announce my role as editor in charge of a list focusing on ‘popular arts’. I liked Robert from our first meeting. He was tall, sharply intelligent, savvy and funny, but capable of real authority, imposing his will when necessary. His father had been the headmaster at Eton, but there was nothing about Robert that conveyed snobbery or superiority. His own writing was serious and dark, but to work with him was inspirational.
After the Faber press conference journalists got out their knives, and the Sunday Times was particularly nasty. But I knew I had been given one of the best jobs in London publishing (even though I was only being paid £7,000 a year and a percentage of any bestsellers), and I wasn’t going to squander the opportunity.
Much was said about my turning up for work in a limo wearing a suit, but that was how I had been living and dressing for several years. Offstage, even in my worst years, I had taken more care of the way I looked than I ever did on stage. I shared an office with Craig Raine, the poetry editor, who dressed like a scruffy art teacher and swore like a shipbuilder. Frank Pike looked after the plays, and one of my first commissions, with Frank’s approval, was to bring Steven Berkoff to Faber as a playwright. His 1986 play Sink the Belgrano! would be called ‘a diatribe in Punk-Shakesperian voice’.
Faber’s chairman, Matthew Evans, enjoyed my notoriety most. ‘Pete Townshend,’ he would announce with a certain ceremony when I walked into his office, as though introducing me to a new stage. Of course, that was exactly what he was doing. We got on very well, and became great friends.
My PA, Judi Waring, had retired, so I advertised for a new assistant. Out of a large number of applicants requiring someone ‘who could juggle chainsaws’ I chose Nicola Joss, who had sent a photo of herself juggling chainsaws. It seemed like a statement about the nature of illusion, the dream within the dream, the joke within the joke.
Nicola had worked for my friend Charles Levison, Chairman at WEA, and brought with her a whole new system of working. Suddenly my life was run with a level of efficiency I had never thought possible. Sadly, her first job was to fly with me to LA to tell Mo Ostin I wanted out of The Who deal, because I needed a witness to record all our meetings. This news was received courteously by Mo, but followed soon by a telex from David Berman, Senior Vice President, demanding repayment of advances paid thus far – multiple millions of dollars. If my colleagues in the band didn’t agree with my decision, I would pay back their shares as well.
Meanwhile I had started producing an album for my brother Simon. Intended to be a side project, this would become central until September. I loved working on it, and felt we had a chance of a hit with the title track, ‘Sweet Sound’.
Karen and I were, to all intents and purposes, living together again as husband and wife, though in my heart my ability to maintain any kind of matrimonial commitment at this stage was fragile and uncertain. In June 1983 we went together to see Bowie perform at Wembley Pool. During the intermission I had an intuition that if I looked very carefully around the vast hall I would see Louise. I spotted a woman sitting with a child, right opposite us on the other side of the hall. There could be no mistaking the movements of her head, the clothes she had chosen: it was her. I excused myself and went over to Louise to say hello.
‘I thought you might be here,’ she said. ‘I’m with my friend and his daughter.’
The next day I could think about nothing but Louise. I could barely function, and found it hard to breathe. Karen was looking more serene and attractive than ever, but my brain was still wired to the moon. Louise didn’t miss me.
My therapy continued twice weekly. Each session concluded with the same quip to my driver, Paul, waiting outside to whisk me back to Twickenham. ‘Still loony,’ I would say, gathering the seatbelt and settling down for the journey home through many of my childhood haunts.
I was troubled a little by anxiety attacks. Apart from therapy I had no other support. I thought Alcoholics Anonymous, for a celebrity, would be a bit of a misnomer – how would I remain anonymous?
When Minta and I had lunch with my parents Dad looked depressed and tetchy, which was unusual for him. He was usually so cheerful. He had recently closed his little junk shop, and I thought that might be a mistake.
I noted in my diary around this time that Karen is getting scarily beautiful. Her face and body are coming alive – she is a greater presence now. When I had been philandering, mainly with women younger than Karen, I had begun to think of her as too old to captivate me again. But it wasn’t she who had grown old, it was me.
The other three members of The Who had buried whatever resentments or problems they might have had with me, or with each other – indeed with anyone at all – and were now looking to find some way to carry on with the band, to continue, in my mind, on some kind of nostalgic sideshow. At a meeting at Bill Curbishley’s offices on 15 June, with all the band members, I stood by my decision to leave. Bill seemed to be the only one who could see I wasn’t going to change my mind. At the very end of the meeting Bill’s wife Jackie turned to me.
‘Perhaps you are finished,’ she said, not unkindly.
She had worked hard, and would continue doing so for some time, to try to support my work as a solo artist. This meeting was the last The Who would have for a very long time.
Nicola’s secretary Joanne took over the business of opening fan mail and setting it out for me to read. Often I found the letters either unthinking or overly analytical. A few were so unkind they could be tossed aside, but some letters demanded replies, and I was often defensive or brittle, which would elicit further attacks. I wanted my fans to understand why I’d left The Who.
One fan wrote, ‘This is bullshit. You know your hair is gone? Well so has your integrity.’ The writer and I had exchanged a few letters, and I thought I’d handled her pretty well. But I found it hard to accept that many fans would prefer me to stick to the rock ’n’ roll code, throwing myself back on the fire again and again until I was eventually consumed like Keith, rather than putting on the brakes and saving my life. But I came to understand that to many fans, although they felt they knew me well, I wasn’t quite real.
When Nicola and Joanne arranged a database, sorting the letters by name and address, it became clear that the same few hundred people were responsible for the whole pile. If men sent photos they tended to be family-oriented, fathers and sons, or groups of men at rock shows or baseball games. Women’s photos were almost always solo, intended to trigger a connection.
My post-Who life was continuing to move into new
and exciting areas. In January 1984, through the philanthropist David Astor, I met Donald Woods, who had written a book about Steve Biko, one of the founders of the ANC in South Africa. Woods was indirectly fundraising to release Nelson Mandela from prison, and I told him I would do what I could to help. Astor and I continued to build the funding of Chiswick Family Rescue, the refuge for battered wives that Karen believed in and supported. Astor was a true philanthropist, and never afraid to be radical. We became great friends, and occasionally worked together on street projects like Brent Black Music (a music studio cooperative) and Ken McDonald’s Fred magazine (a pocket illustrated poetry book).
At Faber & Faber, Robert McCrum decided my free time might be better spent working on a book of short stories. I agreed that I would be taken more seriously as an editor if I could establish that I had at least paid my writerly dues. He also suggested I sort through the Faber archives looking for books to bring back in print, and read from the ‘slush pile’ of unsolicited manuscripts. From the mountain of submissions waiting to be read I took home three every couple of days, so I was reading six books a week on average, and writing six rejection letters. I loved reading these manuscripts, but whether I liked them or not they would never be published by Faber. Very little was published that hadn’t been commissioned by the editorial team.
I reissued John O’Hara’s first novel, Appointment in Samarra. McCrum then introduced me to the artist Brion Gysin, who had suggested to William Burroughs that he try ‘cut-ups’. We worked together for several months, always on the phone between London and Paris, where he lived. His writing was impossible to edit, but he was charming and we finally published his book as it stood.
Who I Am: A Memoir Page 34
