Sunday, November 16, 2014

KLEM FM


"Pure And Easy" was supposed to have been the opening song in Pete Townshend's second concept album (after "Tommy") called "Lifehouse." But the project never gelled. Instead he gave us the album "Who's Next" and if you listen closely to the very end of the very last song -- "The Song Is Over" -- Townshend included the dying gasp of "Pure And Easy:"


Lyrics for "Pure And Easy" follow after the jump.

Pure And Easy

There once was a note, pure and easy
Playing so free, like a breath rippling by

The note is eternal, I hear it, it sees me
Forever we bend it, forever we die

I listened and I heard music in a word
And words when you played your guitar
The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering
And a child flew past me riding in a star

As people assemble
Civilization is trying to find a new way to die
But killing is really merely scene changing
All men are bored with other men's lives

I listened and I heard music in a word
And words when you played your guitar
The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering
And a child flew past me riding in a star

Gas on a hillside
Oil in a teacup
Watch all the chords of life lose their joy
Distortion becomes somehow
Pure in its wildness
The note that began all
Can also destroy

We all know success
When we all find our own dreams
And our love is enough
To knock down any walls
And the future's been seen
As men try to realize
The simple secret of the note in us all

I listened and I heard
Music in a word
And words when you played your guitar
The noise I was hearing was a million people cheering
And a child flew past me riding in a star

There once was a note
Listen
There once was a note
Listen
There once was a note
Listen...etc.

[put away your girlie magazines!]

4 comments:

chickelit said...

...at the very end of the very last song -- The Song Is Over" -- Townshend included the dying gasp of 'Pure And Easy:'

That's what I like about this song -- they way he had to put the beginning of something at the end of something else, thereby inextricably linking the two. Also, it's reminder (to himself I suppose) of a brain child that never came to fruition.

chickelit said...

"Pure And Easy" sounds like a hippie ideal; "Hard And Dirty" is more down to earth.

I had a second thought on my first comment. The melody for "Pure And easy" could have just been a leitmotif intended for use throughout "Lifehouse;" he did a lot of that in Quadrophenia a few years later.

Unknown said...

good morning.... is this thing on?

bagoh20 said...

"Charles Manson gets marriage license"

To a 26 year old woman. He's 80.

Who says crime doesn't pay. Four decades of living with free room and board, free health care, sex, TV, books, fame, and admirers. A better life deal than millions of Americans who never hurt a fly. I guess we don't really mind what he did after all. I'm sure he doesn't regret it. If he never killed those people he never would have gotten any of those things, let alone a 26 year old woman at 80.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-charles-manson-gets-marriage-license-215524033.html