First verse: Thirteen-year-old kid describes himself as a “slip kid,” a soldier off to a civil war and “second generation.”.Hey! Here’s an idea! Let’s see what the lyrics actually say! Well, shee-it, that line could apply to everyone and anything! It applies to every wage slave on the planet, famous people hounded by paparazzi, couples in unhappy marriages and yes, it applies to musicians who don’t have creative control over their music and have to do what the label tells them to do. Some lazy asses out there have used that tidbit to declare that the song is indeed about Pete’s dissatisfaction with the industry, offering no evidence whatsoever except for the line “No easy way to be free.” If you research interpretations of “Slip Kid” on the net, you’ll find that Townshend originally wrote the song as a warning to young people to avoid the music business at all costs. Most of the critics approved of “Slip Kid,” though it’s pretty obvious they had no idea what the song was about. I don’t find Townshend’s lyrics on The Who By Numbers “depressing,” but insightful and likely cathartic-for Townshend and for anyone else who’s had similar experiences or feelings. But if all you want out of music is something that helps you pack up your troubles in your own kit bag, you’ve closed yourself off to the empathy great songwriters can generate when singing about their troubles (and you probably avoid the blues like the plague). Whether it was Glyn Johns pushing the envelope or the latent professionalism of the players coming to the fore when it was time to record, the end result is a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience (though there are a couple of missed opportunities at the end of the album). As for the criticism that The Who By Numbers is “depressing,” I know there are many music fans who only want to hear happy songs that they can dance and sing along to, and yes, it’s nice to enjoy lighter music from time to time ( A Hard Day’s Night is one of my go-to Beatles albums). What I hear in The Who By Numbers are excellent arrangements, first-rate production, fresh instrumentation, strong vocals and beautiful harmonies. Well, y’all know how I hate to deviate from the consensus, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. not because the tracks were weak or the music poor but because the group was so useless,” claimed Townshend in the book The Who By Numbers: The Story of The Who Through Their Music. Critical response was mixed, with “Squeeze Box” dismissed as silly and several other songs labeled “depressing.” Producer Glyn Johns “worked harder on The Who By Numbers than I’ve ever seen him. The only guy who had his shit together was Entwistle, about whom Townshend observed, “John was obviously gaining strength throughout the whole period the great thing about it was he seemed to know we were going to need him more than ever before.” Even with Entwistle’s ballast, progress was slow, with the band spending as much time playing cricket and hanging out at the local pubs as they did in the studio. Keith Moon was Keith Moon-predictably unpredictable, reliably unreliable.
Daltrey was pissed off at the state of the world. Townshend was depressed about the state of his career, disgusted with the music industry, suffering from writer’s block and feeling over-the-hill at the ripe old age of thirty, as if “Hope I die before I get old” had come back to haunt him.
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