Her name was Lisa Marsh, and she was a journalist working for a fashion magazine. She and her boyfriend Michael had been seeing each other for a while. I couldn’t help myself.
‘You are incredible,’ I said.
‘I am?’ It’s what incredible women always said. They rarely said, That old line will get you nowhere …
‘Your nose is perfect. It has a bump.’
‘I do have a bumpy nose.’ She touched a flattened spot below the bridge.
‘It’s your best feature.’
‘You like my bumpy nose?’ She laughed. ‘That’s good.’
Before the evening was over, chatting back and forth, she told me she wanted to write a book. I told her I was a publisher, and we exchanged phone numbers.
Emma flew in to New York with her friend Rose on Sunday, 18 April, to hang out and see previews of the Tommy show. They met me in the lobby of the hotel, where I sat talking to Lisa, having given her some books. I especially wanted her to read The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt. Later Emma told me that what made her suspect I had intentions towards Lisa was that I was giving her books.
Karen came to New York for the opening night of Tommy, sat next to me during the show, and shuddered when she heard ‘I Believe My Own Eyes’, the new song I had contributed about the breakdown of Tommy’s parents’ marriage. Afterwards, at the party, Karen was looking around anxiously. I was still just playing out a loose fantasy, but I had underestimated Karen’s intuition. She sensed something was going on.
That night we received early editions of the reviews, starting with Frank Rich, the ‘butcher of Broadway’. His review was good. Very good. Rich wrote:
‘Hope I die before I get old,’ sang the Who in ‘My Generation,’ its early hit single. A quarter-century or so later, Mr. Townshend hasn’t got old so much as grown up, into a deeper view of humanity unthinkable in the late 1960s. Far from being another of Broadway’s excursions into nostalgia, Tommy is the first musical in years to feel completely alive in its own moment. No wonder that for two hours it makes the world seem young.
The mood of the party quickly ratcheted up, and we were all rocking until nearly dawn. Karen left to catch an early flight home in time for Minta’s 22nd birthday, while I remained in New York to enjoy the reviews and the sight of tickets flying out of the box office. I flew back home two days later.
In the first week of May I worked with David Thacker, Artistic Director of the Young Vic, on Iron Man. We were working through Ted’s original text, placing my songs where they made most sense. I began to feel the play might really work. Then I was back in New York to work with George Martin and his son Giles to record the cast album of Tommy at the Hit Factory. Lisa came to visit at my invitation, making a face when I leaned down to embrace her after I’d smoked a cigarette. We hadn’t even kissed.
Karen knew I had started drinking again, and, in Cornwall for my 48th birthday, was trying to let me know she didn’t mind too much. She’d arranged oysters and champagne for my birthday, and for a while it seemed like she and I might be OK.
What was different about this new drinking was that I could only drink a very small amount before I felt very drunk. My tolerance, once quite beyond belief, was now very low. Before the light faded I took the dogs for a walk in the woods. At the top of the hill, when my mobile phone found a signal, I called Lisa.
She told me she planned to travel to France in August, that I had a sexy voice, that I was crazy, that I was funny, that she liked me better without a beard, that she liked talking to me, that I was stimulating. Her voice on the phone was almost better than her bumpy nose. She didn’t mention her boyfriend.
My wedding anniversary was the day after my birthday. Karen and I had been married for twenty-five years. I felt like a shit for thinking about Lisa that day, but I reminded myself that while Karen and I had endured some awful stand-offs, coldness and compromise, we had also been happy sometimes. We had had two amazing daughters together, and now a son, who was three and a half years old. Every second I’d spent with him had been a happy one. The problem was that I wasn’t rebuilding intimacy with Karen.
We talked about Joseph’s education, and Karen was keen on the posher schools in Salisbury and Wells, which might require us to move. I was willing to investigate schools and look at property, but Joseph seemed very happy in Cornwall with friends his own age, and the state schools in the area were way above the national average. We considered keeping our house in Twickenham but living permanently in Cornwall. Sailing, and boating in general, lifted my spirits, restoring me like nothing else. I loved the wide beaches, the coastal paths and the secret woodlands, but most of all Cornwall for me was about the sea.
Karen couldn’t attend the Tony Awards ceremony because Joseph’s nanny was ill. At a previous Oscars ceremony I had sat with an empty chair beside me, so this time I told Karen I wouldn’t go to the Tonys alone. There is no question that I set this up; had Karen been by my side in New York for the Tony Awards I might not have gone through with my pursuit of Lisa.
I called Lisa and asked her if her boyfriend would mind if she was my date for the ceremony. He was aware I was on a romantic mission, but he agreed. On the day of the ceremony we met at the Royalton, and I gave Lisa a small diamond brooch in the shape of a star. She persuaded me to wear leather trousers, something I’d never done in my entire life.
On the evening of the ceremony I sat in the Royalton restaurant with Des McAnuff and his wife Susie, and had a glass of wine. We were nervous. Des had been nominated for Best Director of a Musical, the two of us had been nominated for Best Book, and I was nominated for Best Score, but we had stiff competition: Kiss of the Spider Woman was highly regarded by ticket buyers and critics. The time came to leave for the awards ceremony, but Lisa hadn’t arrived. Then she suddenly appeared at the door of the restaurant, her hair in ringlets; she was wearing a silk trouser suit and took my breath away.
Des won Best Director; I shared the best score award with Kander and Ebb, not a bad business. Tommy went on to have a very impressive showing that night, as choreographer Wayne Cilento won Best Choreography, Chris Parry took Best Lighting Design and John Armone was awarded Best Scenic Design. Back at the Royalton, Lisa’s boyfriend Michael took me aside; he said I could give Lisa things he never could, and that he was backing off. The reality of what I’d set in motion hit me. Up until now I’d been flirting, but it seemed things were about to get more serious.
When the time came for the guests to leave, I imagined Lisa would stay with me, but instead she took Michael home, since he had got very drunk. If he was drowning his sorrows, he was not alone. I experienced that old familiar wound of being abandoned, and had an anxiety attack that saw me pacing the pavement outside the hotel. I was practically howling.
After commissioning Nicola to start looking for a New York apartment for me, I flew on the Atlantic corporate jet with Jann Wenner and Ahmet Ertegun to Cleveland for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The architect I.M. Pei would hold the shovel. In addition to the $500,000 donated by The Who in 1989 I had given a substantially larger personal donation.
Chuck Berry and I sparred to make the wittiest speech. When I tried to introduce myself to I.M. Pei, and get a pat on the head for having contributed so much money, he ordered me to get out of his way. Suddenly I was desperate for a drink, but none could be found.
Pychoderelict was released a week later. I proposed a stage play with songs based on the album, and invited Barney to co-direct with Wayne Cilento, the choreographer on Tommy. They were already working with the lighting director Wendell Harrington, who had done the back-projections for Tommy, which was good news. For my show we were going to rely entirely on the back projections, using a nine-projector system controlled by computer.
Band rehearsals began at Bray studios in the UK on 26 June. Because there were no plans to do any shows in London, I decided to do an acoustic workshop of Psychoderelict for the press and media at the Mayfair Theatre o
n 3 July. I was up half the night adapting and rehearsing the songs, not all of which translated well for acoustic guitar. The three actors from the recording – Jan Ravens as the journalist Ruth Streeting, Lionel Haft as the manager and John Labanowski as Ray High – read their parts from the script and afterwards I took questions. It almost worked.
The tour kicked off on 6 July with technical rehearsals at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The band was just about my perfect pick. I had two first-rate guitar players in Andy Fairweather Low and Phil Palmer, Pino Palladino on bass, Simon Phillips on drums, Rabbit on keyboards, Peter Hope-Evans on harmonica and playing court jester, and Billy Nicholls and Katie Kisoon provided backing vocals. I sang, played acoustic guitar sometimes, and despite my damaged hand, which was still healing, played some edgy Fender Telecaster solos.
The music sounded amazing. It was never too loud, I could always hear my voice and I enjoyed performing. I had decided on a ‘tripartite’ show, with some songs selected from The Who and my solo catalogues, then Psychoderelict, then a closing rock thrash. I had never done a two-hour show in which I not only played guitar but sang every song, but as long as I didn’t drink I would be OK.
By this time it was clear to everyone who knew me that Karen and I were in serious trouble. I squired Lisa Marsh in and out of the theatre on a string of awkward dates. One night, after several dates with me seeing her home and ending up on my knees outside her apartment, she said, for whatever reason, that I could stay over. We got drunk, had sex and it was everything I had imagined.
I wandered out onto Broadway at six in the morning and was intercepted by a young black girl wearing a thin T-shirt. I put my hand in my pocket, thinking she was going to ask for money. Instead she held her hands up to my face.
‘You have the most beautiful eyes,’ she said, and walked on.
Lisa had a good friend in Robert Kirk, a photographer working on most of Lisa’s fashion shoots, who took photos of my show during rehearsals. He had family experience with troubled drinkers and his presence helped me stay sober at first. Lisa had also continued to operate as my informal stylist, encouraging me to wear black jackets, tighter trousers than I was used to, and to be clean-shaven with something hanging around my neck – sometimes a slug of silver, sometimes a Celtic cross.
At the first Psychoderelict show in Toronto, at Massey Hall on 10 July, many in the crowd already knew the words to all the songs. Others had come hoping to see The Who. My three actors found it strange to work with a rowdy rock audience who not only parroted their songs, but shouted constantly that the show was rubbish, or that they loved it, or that they wanted ‘Magic Bus’, or for me to smash my guitar. It was affectionate but disrupting; it was also very cool somehow. The actors soon got used to it; I was shouting above the rabble, playing to the lip of the stage, pausing between lines to let the crowd have their say.
The tour was the most fun I have ever had in my life on stage, and if it hadn’t been for a ‘slip’ on my part I might have continued with my solo career in happy sobriety. One day when I turned up at the Tommy stage show tour rehearsals at 890 Studios in New York, one of the doormen who had seen my show at Jones Beach the night before described it as ‘The best fucking rock ’n’ roll show I have ever seen in my fucking life – that includes The Who, Springsteen and Neil Young.’ I felt great about that.
The slip? A little context first. I was falling in love with Lisa very quickly. I found her funny, I liked her friends, they tolerated me, she liked to drink, to eat, dance and have sex. She was glamorous, well dressed, smart and really pretty. The bumpy nose was a killer for me. She travelled with me to Chicago, and before I went on stage two things happened. One was that the drummer Buddy Miles was backstage with his bad leg, telling stories about the last days with Jimi Hendrix. The other was that I saw a girl from the 1989 Who tour. Her name was Mary Beth Nawa and she and I had started a long, affectionate friendship with a boat trip on the lake and bleary sex in Chicago while I was doing heavy meds for a bronchial condition. I should have had no difficulty introducing Lisa to Mary Beth, but suddenly I started having an anxiety attack, while Buddy went on and on.
I should have asked everyone to step out and give me a moment alone, but I knew Buddy would be offended. It was great to see him, and at any other time it would have been great, but I was shaking as my anxiety threatened to become full-blown panic.
Just before my call to the stage I asked a crew member to get me a bottle of vodka, planning to settle my anxiety as I had many times before. It didn’t occur to me that I hadn’t done this for over eleven years. I slugged down half the bottle, straightened up and walked on the stage. That’s pretty much all I recall. What I heard later was that quite a few fans were upset to see me falling over and ranting. A large number asked for their money back.
During a break in the Psychoderelict US tour I joined my family for a week in the Scilly Isles. I had my own bedroom, and things were uneasy for Karen and me. I was still fielding phone calls from Lisa, and not trying very hard to hide from Karen that I had a new girlfriend.
At our house in Twickenham I had moved into my studio, The Cube, aka the ‘garden shed’. It lacked a real kitchen, the bathroom was dowdy and the bedroom tiny. Joseph would wander down to see me there, and we played happily together, but otherwise I was a portrait of misery. And Karen hated the fact that I wouldn’t live in the house with her. On one night when I tried to, I had the most shocking nightmare about my time with my grandmother, a door opening and someone entering …
The second leg of my solo tour began with two shows at the Wilshire Theater in LA, where I did an interview for Playboy magazine in which I revealed I had begun ‘controlled’ drinking again. The journalist David Sheff seemed more worried about it than I was, and followed up with a concerned personal letter to me.*
After a show in San Francisco I talked to Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam. He was having problems adjusting to fame and was thinking about going back to being a surfer. I gave him my philosophy: we don’t make the choice, the public does. We are elected by them, even if we never stood for office. Accept it.
I returned to New York to play two shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one for television. The TV people wanted me to play the entire show in the afternoon for their camera line-up, which I did, but by the evening show I was tired and my voice was very rough. I sounded like Rod Stewart. Happily there were not very many high notes in my set.
I went back to Cornwall to spend time with Joseph, do some sailing and try to work out what to do next. A few months short of four years old, Joseph was game for anything. We went crabbing, swimming and rowing. He loved being on boats and wanted to get a wetsuit so he could snorkel in the icy Cornish waters; it was fun shopping for the very small one he needed.
Around this time there was the most awful tragedy. Joseph’s nanny’s baby died in a cot death. She had been bringing the baby to work while she looked after Joseph, and we all knew and loved her. We were heartbroken.
I was dividing my time between London for Iron Man rehearsals and the States for the continuing Psychoderelict tour. I flew back and forth so often I lost track of time. Iron Man required a new last-minute recitative from me, and I enjoyed writing it, but I often didn’t remember having made changes when I attended rehearsals. I was coming close to nervous exhaustion and ended up being carried to my limo at a Madonna show at Madison Square Garden. I was drunk again after drinking almost nothing that day. I do remember that it was an incredible show, until I blacked out.
By the time Iron Man opened to the press in November I was beyond exhausted. The show was extremely ambitious musically. The parts written for the cast were very demanding, and there was a lot of running around that affected their breathing. After a few shows we added drums to the band, which helped drive things along a little. We also added bass guitar. Yet the music never felt quite right. Some of the recitative sections were very moving and I was pleased with them, but a couple of the songs were excruci
ating, and I didn’t have the energy or will to fix them. David Thacker, artistic director at the Old Vic, was a real believer in the piece and wanted to transfer it to the West End, but I was reticent.
I asked Tom Stoppard to come and see it, and he gave me some very helpful but sobering suggestions. Frankly, he felt there was far too much to fix. Richard O’Brien, who wrote The Rocky Horror Show, was a fanatical supporter, coming for almost every show in the first couple of weeks, and was very kind to me about the problems we faced. Many of my friends loved it, though, and accepted it as a work-in-progress.
Michael Foot, the former Labour leader, who had become a family friend, took his grandchildren and wrote me a note saying how powerful he felt the ‘message’ was. Ted Hughes himself seemed to enjoy the show, especially the huge robotic Iron Man that the designer Shelagh Keegan had constructed of old junk. The show wasn’t a hit with critics, but most were at least encouraging – everyone in London always wants the Young Vic to do well. The show did very well at the box office, running through Christmas and beyond. But when the decision needed to be made about what to do next I was blacking out almost every night and knew I couldn’t be trusted to think clearly.
A sense of darkness had truly descended on me. Everything felt as though it was shutting down. Back in England, just before Christmas, my friend and property advisor Perry took me to look at a house Roger Waters was selling facing the sea on the south coast. It was a bleak day. The house was almost unfurnished; a few old sofas looked out on the greyness as the first winter snow fell. I had a vision of myself alone, like Gabriel, my washed-up psychoderelict rock star, gazing at the distant Isle of Wight, freezing on the beach, yearning for New York.
Who I Am: A Memoir Page 40
