Album: Who Came First
Year: 1972
Pete Townshend’s first official solo album, Who Came First, is kind of a mongrel mess. As a devotee of Meher Baba, he’d already participated in a pair of privately-distributed records as tributes to Baba, which were — duh! — heavily.
Because there was clearly a demand for Townshend’s music outside of the context of The Who, the decision was made to take a couple of tracks from those records and combine them with three demos from Pete’s aborted Lifehouse project, from which had sprung the monumental who’s next.
Two of those demos were “Pure And Easy,” at that point still unreleased by The Who (though it would show up in a couple of years on Odds and Sods) (and in a couple of years in this very space), and “Let’s See Action,” which was part of a triptych of non-album singles — the other two were future Certain Song “Join Together” and “The Relay” — that kinda decorated who’s next.
While The Who’s version of “Let’s See Action” was really really good — I mean, it’s the fucking Who, for chrissakes — I’ve always preferred Townshend’s version from Who Came First, which is both longer and more energetic than the version by his band.
Kicking off with an acoustic guitar, rolling piano and handclaps (which might be the reason), “Let’s See Action” is an exercise in repetition, especially lyrically, where after a couple of opening verses, it seems like 98% of the song is Pete singing the same verse over and over again, eventually playing call-and-response with himself over his jagged rhythm guitar, piano craziness and the ongoing handclaps.
Let’s see action (Let’s see action)
Let’s see people (Let’s see people)
Let’s see freedom (Let’s see freedom)
In the air (In the air)
Let’s see action (Let’s see action)
Let’s see people (Let’s see people)
Let’s be free (Let’s be free)
Let’s see who cares (See who cares)
That’s actually not true, of course: there’s a great Townshend guitar solo early on, and about halfway through, and the song breaks down into a long, gorgeous synth-drenched mid-section where The Seeker wants to let us know that it’s OK if we don’t find exactly what we seek, because life is the journey, not the destination.
I don’t know where I’m going
I don’t know what I need
But I’ll get to where I’m gonna end up
And that’s alright by me
Then, after revving back for for another round of imploring us kids — for whom he wrote the song, natch — to see action, people, freedom, etc, there’s another breakdown, a spidery guitar lead, and over handclaps, quick drum rolls and a two-note piano, “Let’s See Action” has one last pearl of wisdom for us.
Nothing is everything is nothing is
Everything is nothing is everything is
Nothing is everything is nothing
Is everything is nothing is everything is
Nothing is everything is nothing
Is everything is nothing is everything
Like many Pete Townshend lyrics, I’ve thought a lot about this over the years. Does “nothing is everything” mean that you shouldn’t worry about a specific thing, because no single thing is everything, or is he saying that the state of nothingness is everything? Or both? Or neither? All these years later, it’s possible that Townshend himself isn’t even sure, but that’s alright, because nothing is everything.
“Let’s See Action”
Pete performing “Let’s See Action” solo acoustic, 2005
The Who – “Let’s See Action” single
“Let’s See Action” performed live by The Who w/ Eddie Vedder, 2000
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