Album: Rough Mix
Year: 1977
In late 1976, after what turned out to be The Who’s final full tour with Keith Moon (big fucking sigh), Pete Townshend was asked by fellow mod-turned-Meher Baba acolyte Ronnie Lane to produce Lane’s next album.
Ronnie Lane was a founding member and bassist for both incarnations of the Faces: the Small with Steve Marriott and the drunk with Rod Stewart, and he was also responsible for of one of the greatest songs anybody will ever write about growing older, “Ooh La La“.
So while Lane wasn’t in Townshend’s league as a songwriter, it still wasn’t a surprise when they decided to collaborate on an album of songs featuring some of their heavyweight friends, most notably Eric Clapton & Charlie Watts. It also wasn’t a surprise that the best songs were Townshend’s, like the opening fucksong “My Baby Gives It Away,” a Charlie Watts-driven rocker as full-throttled as anything on The Who By Numbers.
My baby wakes in the deep of the night
She doesn’t need it, but she says it’s all right
My baby digs him ’cause I’m rollin’ away
My baby gives it up every day
My baby gives it, she gives it away
My baby gives it up every day
My baby, she just gives it away
After all of the heavy songs on Quadrophenia & The Who By Numbers, it was no doubt to know that light-hearted Pete Townshend still existed. “She’s cheap!” He jokes, early on, more so in happiness and wonderment than in derision. Meanwhile, there is plenty of patented Pete Townshend lead guitar all over the track, as well as a terrific bridge.
You better buy yourself a new pair of shoes
And walk for a lifetime on the page you knew
You better buy yourself a ‘lectric guitar
You better play, there’s no other way to beat the blues
I beat ’em!
His yelp of “I beat ’em” is so happy and heartfelt — kinda like the “whoooo-YEAH” in “Going Mobile” — that if you didn’t know any better, you might actually think that he’s finally beaten the blues. If you didn’t know any better.
But, of course, all these years later, we know better. And yet, there’s something deceptively charming about “My Baby Gives It Away,” especially the repeated “my baby, my baby, my baby, my baby” that dominates the second half of the song. When he says he loves her, you totally and utterly believe him.
“My Baby Gives it Away”
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