This is part of Tommy, the first "rock opera." Tommy is about a young man who is deaf, dumb, and blind, but becomes a pinball champion and gains hordes of adoring fans. It was made into a play and ran as an off-Broadway production.
Like most songs on the Tommy album, "Pinball Wizard" was written by The Who guitarist, Pete Townshend. The album existed mostly in his head while they were recording it, and the other members of The Who had no idea how most of the story would end until they finished it. The only songs Townshend didn't write for the project were "Cousin Kevin" and "Fiddle About" (by bass player John Entwistle), and "Tommy's Holiday Camp" (by Keith Moon).
"Pinball Wizard" was written to impress a rock critic. Pete Townshend was very excited about the Tommy album, but the whole "rock opera" concept was a tough sell. The influential UK rock critic Nik Cohn was brought in to hear a rough mix of the album, and he wasn't impressed. On the spot, Townshend thought about how he could make it more accessible, and knowing that Cohn was a pinball fanatic, proffered that Tommy could be a pinball savant. Cohn loved the idea, so Townshend went home and banged out "Pinball Wizard." The ploy worked: Cohn gave the project a favorable review that helped build momentum for it.
Tommy was made into a movie in 1975 starring Jack Nicholson, Ann Margaret, Tina Turner, and Roger Daltrey (who played Tommy). Elton John made an appearance as The Pinball Wizard and performed this song. His version hit #7 in the UK.
Many of the songs from
Tommy don't make a lot of sense when detached from the album, but "Pinball Wizard" stands well on its own. Released as the first single, it was a solid hit and gave the rock opera a nice boost. The other singles from the album were "
See Me, Feel Me" and "
I'm Free." "Pinball Wizard" and "See Me, Feel Me" became concert stalwarts The Who played throughout their career.
Pete Townshend dashed the song off quickly and was not impressed with his work, calling it "the most clumsy piece of writing I've ever done." In the liner notes to the 2003 Tommy reissue, he said: "I'm embarrassed. This sounds like a Music Hall song. Sure plays a mean pinball. I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on. I attempted the same mock baroque guitar beginning that's on 'I'm a Boy' and then a bit of vigorous kind of flamenco guitar. I was just grabbing at ideas, I knocked a demo together and took it to the studio and everyone loved it."
The character Tommy played pinball by feeling the vibrations of the machine. Townshend liked how that related to listeners picking up the vibrations of the music to feel the story.
The Tommy story had nothing to do with pinball until this song was written. The other songs were all completed, but The Who went back to insert pinball references into some of them to tie the concept together. In the song "Christmas," the line "Playing poxy pinball" was added; in "We're Not Gonna Take It," they put in "If you want to follow me, you've got to play pinball."
The version on the album runs 3:50. The single was sped-up and cut down to 3:01 to make it more radio-friendly.
The Who performed this at Woodstock in 1969. The song was still fairly new, so many in the crowd did not recognize it. The Who were given the early morning slot, so they ended up playing it as the sun came up.
The Who performed the entire album from start to finish on their subsequent tour. Two of the dates were in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
The Dutch group The Shocking Blue used the "Pinball Wizard" guitar riff for their 1969 hit "
Venus," which was covered by Bananarama in 1986.
The album got The Who out of a financial mess. After a legal battle with their manager,
Shel Talmy, and some bad business deals in England, they were facing bankruptcy if it didn't sell.
According to the book
The Duh Awards by Bob Fenster, Rod Stewart asked Elton John if he should accept an offer to sing in
Tommy. Elton told him no way, "Don't touch it with a barge pole." A year later, The Who asked Elton John to sing the same song. Elton grabbed his barge pole and took the offer. "I don't think Rod's quite forgiven me for that," he commented years later.
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Suggestion credit:
Alexandra - Hanover, PA
Townshend played a 1968 Gibson SG Special guitar on this song.
"Pinball Wizard" features in a
commercial for the Toyota Supra GR that debuted during the 2019 Super Bowl between the Rams and Patriots. In the spot, a driver navigates a life-size pinball game in the vehicle.
