On 30 May 1987 I bound a few copies of the first draft of my musical play – in two columns, lyrics and music on the right, and action on the left, like Ken Russell’s script for the Tommy film, and distributed them. McCrum responded economically. ‘Impressive word-processing, Pete!’
While I had been working on The Iron Man, Spike Wilkins had put together a second Scoop collection of demos, unreleased tracks of interest and musical oddities. This had been released very quietly by Atlantic in July (as Another Scoop), was hardly selling and got little press, and I was curious as to why it had been neglected by the label. Doug Morris had expressly asked me to let him release it so everything was under the same roof. It was a side project for me, but one I took seriously.
Jackie Curbishley wrote to me on the subject, commiserating circumspectly, then raised a topic from her end-of-year appraisal letter.
Iron Man should be a Who project. We can then announce that Pete Townshend has been writing an opera for The Who for the last four years in great secrecy. And the world would be reminded that you did it first, with Tommy. We could get millions of dollars for a Who album of this nature (if it’s as good as I feel in my bones it is going to be) then I can buy another house, and so can you. John can keep Quarwood [his grand country house in Stow] for another year and Roger can postpone his Pepsi Cola advert.
You know it makes sense. I am serious Pete. It would be fun. There would be no danger of touring if it were for the stage. You said recently that you always seem to find yourself writing for Roger’s voice from habit. If you knew, absolutely, that Roger and John would jump at the opportunity, what would you say? You wouldn’t need to sign any long-term Who deal. I have discussed the fact that I have urged you to make Iron Man a Who project and Bill endorses that. He thinks it would be a brilliant move. The way I see this is: Pete Townshend at Brixton was one thing. Pete Townshend and Wembley Pool would have been another. Pete Townshend’s Iron Man would be one thing. The Who’s Iron Man would be another. You told me categorically that you never listen to me, so I have no fear that you will take this seriously.
The problem was that the music I’d composed so far was definitely not suitable for The Who, and I knew Roger would hate it. The last song I’d unwittingly written for Roger’s voice was ‘After the Fire’; in his hands it became an equally unwitting anthem of regretful nostalgia for the halcyon days of his youth as a rock star. The song, written alongside ‘All Shall Be Well’, was actually about the end of South African apartheid.
‘Who is that stunning-looking woman behind us?’ Emma whispered to me.
We were at the première screening of John Boorman’s Hope and Glory. I looked around and it was Theresa Russell, sitting with Nic Roeg. They both smiled at me. After the film I made introductions, but not before Theresa had taken my face in her hands and kissed me affectionately. It was hard for me to forget the crazy days. What great people, and how kind they were, those two, but I wonder what Emma thought of it.
It was a very happy time for me with my family during this period. What is taken to be quite normal for most people was a novelty to me. Taking the girls to and from university, planning dinner parties and being entertained by friends and neighbours – I was fitting in, and it felt good.
I remember the striking daughter of one of our neighbours interrogating me cheekily about what I knew about T.S. Eliot, showing off her own knowledge, and when she was chided by one of her parents because I was an important writer myself she made it clear she had no idea who I was. I loved this. That might seem surprising, but at last I felt I was being valued for who I really was, not for who I once had been.
Karen’s sister Virginia’s daughter Florence was born on 14 December, and it was a delight to have a new baby in the house again. She was a radiant child with chubby arms and legs. Tennyson House felt filled with light. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Karen, who was now forty, soon wanted another child before it was too late.
But I worried that our having more children would leave Virginia and baby Florence in the lurch, especially after my promise to help. I had imagined myself as a constant godfather to Florence, seeing her often, reliving my good times with my own two daughters, maybe catching up on some of the things I’d missed with them when I was on the road. I wouldn’t have much time for her with a baby of my own.
I also worried about spending two or three years focusing on child-rearing instead of work. My two studios were only just breaking even, and the boathouse needed an expensive new mixing desk. Without the tours I depended entirely on record advances and my publishing income to keep everything moving. Things were getting tight. I had already spent a year working on Iron Man. Karen had completed full-time teacher training and was working part time, but I was still the principal breadwinner. Could I afford to take a three-year break? I doubted it.
I loved being a hands-on father, but that wasn’t easy either. Minta was a normal teenager, pressing my buttons, climbing out of her bedroom window at night, staying out late. She was a great girl, but I became distressed when my patience with her ran short. I didn’t want to get angry with my kids, not ever. Emma reminded me of myself as a teenager – a little lost, torn between impulsive creativity and academic life. I couldn’t sort out my feelings so, in an attempt to articulate them, even to myself, I wrote to Karen.
Dear Karen,
I know it is very upsetting to be subjected to my manic behaviour: in a kind of ecstasy one day and seeing dark edges around the windows the next. But there is something about being with the family, just we four, that reminds me of what I am.
You said the other day that I look like someone who needs to be sad, to let the sadness come and go. But the sadness is so enormous, there is so much of it, and it belongs to a six or seven year old boy – I just haven’t got the equipment to express it any more.
This letter didn’t require a response; it was an apology.
We were trying hard to have a child in the time-honoured manner, but it wasn’t happening. When we began to consider adoption, I spoke to Jann Wenner who had adopted a boy the year before, after which his wife had become pregnant. Effectively they’d ended up with two new sons very close in age, and the boys got on really well. Chucho Merchan (who had played in Deep End) and his partner Anna found us twin baby boys in Colombia ready for adoption. We began proceedings, but soon abandoned the idea when we were told by one agency that we were too old, by another that we were too eccentric and yet another referred to my much-publicised drug use.
One condition of my commitment to having another child at 44 was that we have full-time help. I was still working flat out, every day. Karen agreed we would hire two nannies; she may have had her fingers crossed behind her back, but she agreed.
The financial budgeting thrown up by all this led me to consider downsizing my companies. This would mean selling or leasing part or all of my studios in Isleworth and Soho, moving my offices somewhere less grand and reducing staff. I burned through my advance money for Iron Man very quickly. This was a habit of mine; I always used every record advance to make the record in question, and in this case I was working more intensively and meticulously than ever before.
Rabbit, whom I had not seen for nearly four years, had finally re-emerged and I began using him and Chucho to help with arrangements and orchestrations. Billy Nicholls was working almost full time on backing vocals and as music director in that department. I brought in Simon Phillips, the highest-paid session drummer in the world at this time, to do drum programming on the Synclavier, and some overdubs with real drums. When I used Bill Price as an engineer, and I wanted him full time, he charged top rates. I still hadn’t settled on a cast for the album, though my wish-list at the time was promising: John Lee Hooker, Lou Reed and Nina Simone had all responded with interest. When the time came to contract star singers I would have to pay substantial advances, royalties and expenses to record in the UK.
Despite the pressure, I loved working on Iron Man. At some points I felt like a film direc
tor, slowly building a story that would come together in the editing and make sense. Wherever necessary I drew on Ted Hughes’s original text, both at the preparation stage and even in the final libretto, to advance the story.
Even with a double album I was concerned I might not have enough time. The CD format allowed more time than vinyl, but in 1986 record companies still released both, so I was constrained. At best, I had 75 minutes. The average musical ran for 135 minutes, and Phantom of the Opera ran for three hours. So I was working on two versions of Iron Man: a soundtrack that would work as a freestanding version of the story, and a longer theatrical score.
I worked through the summer. Simon Draper was still fully committed to putting out a double album, but Doug Morris in New York had become unsettled. Doug and Bill Curbishley were very good friends, and what they both wanted from me – and for me – was hits, not smartass musicals. They knew I would always want to innovate, but they were looking for something from the Iron Man project that I didn’t think it could deliver – hit songs that would get radio play.
In September 1988 Bill Curbishley and I spoke about making a new album with The Who to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary in 1989. This was as much my idea as Bill’s. At Faber editorial meetings I’d lost count of the number of anniversaries of famous writers that triggered new campaigns or new books.
There was mounting pressure on me to return to The Who. Live Aid and a one-off performance for the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) had created sparks. Neither show was great, but they set the cash registers ringing. And I wasn’t at all sure that without The Who I could generate enough money to give a new child the chance of a good life and a decent education. My two daughters were growing up. We were not a perfect family, but by the appalling measure of show business we had done OK. We’d survived, and that was the main thing.
My first suggestion to Bill was to make a record with Chris Thomas producing, and maybe record songs not written by me but selected from among the favourites John, Roger and I might bring to the table. Bill approached MCA records, who still owned the majority of The Who’s back catalogue. They offered $1 million for a new record, which didn’t seem enough to me, although I couldn’t speak for Roger and John. Chris Thomas’s manager asked for a high percentage and a very large advance. Bill Price’s engineering would cost at least as much over a twenty-four-week schedule, possibly more. Studio charges, even if we used Eel Pie – my own studios – at cut rates, would take care of what was left.
Bill said that if we toured we could expect double or even triple the amount. If The Who were to tour, say twenty-five dates over six weeks, not only would the record advance increase, but corporate sponsorship could be tied to the twenty-fifth anniversary. The dates themselves could net each Who member $1 million each week. After tax and deductions I could end up with £4 million, and be set up for the future; so would the child Karen and I still hoped to have or adopt. This windfall would also allow me to continue my intensive work on Iron Man, for which I was having trouble finding an ending.
I finally completed Iron Man with vocal sessions from John Lee Hooker in New York, and Deborah Conway and Nina Simone in London. John Lee was great to work with as the Iron Man; we did it pretty much line by line. Nina was magnificent, and did a fantastic job as the Space Dragon. Doug and Bill had persuaded me to make one track on the album a Who track, and I chose Arthur Brown’s song ‘Fire’. It nearly fitted.
Atlantic wanted a single album, instead of the double that Virgin had contracted me for, so the project of culling the songs was one I completed with clenched teeth. I had the feeling this was a terrible mistake, but felt I had no choice. Iron Man, after two years’ solid work, felt as though it was being set aside and The Who were crashing back into my life yet again.
By 1988 my studio at the boathouse was no longer an amusement or place of refuge and creativity (it isn’t wrong to say that musicians ‘play’ together). It had become a business. The Synclavier cost as much as a house; the Focusrite desk would cost as much as an even bigger house. I loved putting studio equipment together, and was proud of my business, but didn’t feel I could ‘play’ in my studios any more.
So, never much interested in cars apart from their ability to transport me quickly and safely, I turned to boats – my new train set. I bought Blue Merlin, a 46-foot motor-sailer with roll-away sails and a powerful bow-thruster, so it could be sailed and manoeuvred singlehandedly. I sold a lot of precious guitars to make the deal: two De Angelicos, the Gibson Flying V that Joe Walsh had given me (boy, was he pissed off when he found out), the Guild Merle Travis, a double-neck white Gibson and a few lesser ones.
This gave me the deposit, and Blue Merlin became the yacht that would finally allow me to become a real sailor. My new toys would almost certainly cost me as much as my old ones, and be far less obviously useful in my career. But I loved boats and the sea, and my time sailing was like a meditation.
On 22 September Bill told me that most American promoters he’d spoken to thought there was no need for a new Who album. Why spoil a good thing? All we had to do was tour. They predicted The Who would be the number one ticket in 1989, overtaking Led Zeppelin, whose last tour had been in Europe in 1980. The offers for sponsorship were very good, which meant we could afford to have a larger band like the one I’d used with Deep End, which had created an immensely forceful sound, but at decibel levels less than half those produced by The Who. I was still experiencing hearing trouble, tinnitus and occasional pressure problems, and I wanted to hang on to what I had left.
‘I am superstitious,’ I wrote in my diary on 4 December 1988. ‘The last attempt I made to work with The Who coincided with Minta’s hospitalisation for pneumonia. When I tried to play in New York for Amnesty, my father died. When I played in Cannes a terrible mistral-cum-hurricane threatened my televised concert. At Brixton, Karen became ill. The Who have their collective karma: Cincinnati, Keith, and Kit. Do we really have the right to celebrate a 25th anniversary?’
The former members of The Who met the next day for seven hours. Bill Curbishley was there, and Frank Barsalona and Barbara Skydell from Premier Talent, who would produce our tour, were over from New York to advise us. Frank was just as twitchy as he was when he bullied me to play at Woodstock twenty years before. Bill looked tanned and relaxed, as he spent a lot of time in Spain. Barbara Skydell played the role of soothing matron, belying her true power and influence in the music industry – putting together tours for some of the biggest names in the business, Tom Petty, Keith Richards and The Clash.
Roger shifted in his chair, and John slid his finger up and down the side of his nose as he always did at such times. There was an air of expectancy and tension in the room, but this was a friendly group – we all liked each other, and there was affection akin to love in this reunion. Still, my heart was beating so fast I felt dizzy.
Several times John said he had produced a new set of equipment that would enable him to play quieter. Roger revealed he had written songs with someone called Nigel; they felt society needed ‘unpolitical’ material of the kind The Who produced in the late Seventies. But I could tell that Roger was worried. He may have felt this whenever he contemplated a new tour, but it was a new feeling for me.
After many hours of discussion, clearly very concerned that the meeting might end without a conclusion, Bill asked that we stay at the hotel until we’d made a decision. He suggested various sponsors for the tour, such as General Foods, and when we rejected them he suggested we could give half the money they gave us to various charities – which could be as much as $8 million.
The unending pressure of the meeting began to make me feel manic, so we took a break. Back in the room, I became more and more unsteady. At six o’clock something strange happened: the atmosphere became charged anew: Roger became more attentive, Bill sped up the pace, and sheets of paper appeared with numbers and dates written on them. Rehearsals would begin in May, possible warm-up gigs in June, then away for the tour with a
gap from 1 to 17 August.
By 6.20 I was hallucinating: people were developing auras. I didn’t want to do this. We were actually talking about tour scheduling. At 6.25 Roger was going to leave – he had to go. Where, I wondered. At 6.30 I was feeling sick. I wanted drugs. I was anxious. I wanted to see Karen. At 6.33 Roger was leaving; he would miss the final resolution of the meeting. At 6.40 Karen rang, wanting to go to her archaeology class. Minta was ill in bed; when would I be back?
A few minutes later Frank asked me if I was all right; I said no. Barbara asked me how the plan looked, and I said it looked terrible, I felt scared and I wanted to die. She laughed: apart from that, how did it look? I got up to leave, said goodbye to all those nice people, and left. By the time I got in the car I already felt much better. Booking a tour like that can feel a little like knowing that you will soon enjoy a lottery win.
A couple of days later my emotional pendulum swung yet again, and I spoke to Bill and told him I couldn’t go through with any tour plans. I wrote to Roger and John saying that everything had felt all right when it was hypothetical, but once I started hearing about cities, towns and stadiums I began to feel nauseous. My last word was that The Who were finally, completely, irrevocably over.
Of course it wasn’t true.
Karen and I travelled together to New York at the beginning of 1989, where I was inducting The Rolling Stones into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Being there, especially meeting Little Richard, who was inducting the late Otis Redding, made me feel that continuing to perform with The Who might not be such a bad thing after all. Little Richard was still so alive he seemed to be wired into the city’s electricity grid. His induction was extraordinary, conducted entirely in Otis Redding’s voice, which he brilliantly mimicked. Keith Moon writ large.
Who I Am: A Memoir Page 37
