Roger Daltrey’s favourite song by The Who: “I was desperately trying to hold it together”
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(Credits: Bent Rej)
The Who’s enigmatic frontman Roger Daltrey set the standard for the quintessential rock ‘n’ roll lead singer. For nearly 60 years, he has commanded the stage with a vivacious authority, performing as though he owned every inch of it. Few have enjoyed a musical career as enduring and fortuitous as Daltrey’s, who continues to sell out stadiums and prove that age is nothing more than a number.
While his route into the band was somewhat academic, Daltrey fought valiantly to have his place reserved in the group. As well as Robert Plant nearly nabbing his spot as the frontman of the band, he routinely fought with Keith Moon and Pete Townshend, the latter of which being a fracas that has continued to rumble on for the last six decades.
Despite this, The Who have touched countless lives with their music and given millions of people memories they will remember until they draw their last breath. Picking a favourite song by the iconic British group is an impossible task for many, and no doubt alternates every week, but surprisingly, for Roger Daltrey, it’s a simpler task.
While most bands struggle to lay their hat on one single selection as their ultimate track, often leaning into a Sphie’s Choice kind of decision, Daltrey was more than able to use his inside knowledge to pick the most important tune from their oeuvre. After all, nobody knows these songs as well as he does, apart from Pete Townshend, which makes Daltrey’s opinion on this matter sacrosanct.
In his 2018 autobiography, Thanks to Mr Kibblewhite, Daltrey told his story and shared his origin story of growing up as a Blitz kid at the tail-end of World War II. From his humble beginnings, he became the frontman of the biggest rock band on the planet, which emerged from a sub-culture that changed the mainstream forever.
His book is a must-read for any Who fan. Not only does the singer provide a unique view into what life was like during the band’s heady peak, but Daltrey also reveals his favourite track by the group. Surprisingly, it’s not ‘My Generation’, ‘Pinball Wizard’, ‘Baba O’Riley’, or ‘Substitute’, but instead is a deeper cut that inhabits the most desired location in Daltrey’s heart. Daltrey selected ‘Behind Blue Eyes’, which was initially composed by Pete Townshend for his Lifehouse project and ended up being the second single from their fifth record, Who’s Next.
His vocals on the song are truly astonishing, and there’s a heartfelt element to Daltrey’s delivery that is impossible to feign. In the book, Daltrey revealed that he’d suffered personal heartache on the day of laying down his vocals on the track. He wrote: “My dog got run over, the first dog I ever had. I was desperately trying to hold it together.”
Townshend wrote the track following a gig in Denver in 1970 after being hounded by groupies, which he decided to pass up. Instead, the guitarist decided to return to his hotel room alone. When he reached his room, Townshend set about writing a prayer, the first words being “when my fist clenches, crack it open…” These words would end up becoming the start of ‘Behind Blue Eyes’, and the rest is history.
Commenting on the track, Townshend once said: “‘Behind Blue Eyes’ really is off the wall because that was a song sung by the villain of the piece [Jumbo], the fact that he felt in the original story that he was forced into a position of being a villain whereas he felt he was a good guy.”
Although Townshend wrote the song and created it from his imagination, Daltrey’s vocals fill the track, making ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ such an enthralling listen. Daltrey is unquestionably one of the finest frontmen in rock history, and his performance here proves exactly why.
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