Swan Dive

When I feel depressed and disgusted by the state of modern rock and those songs with the American Idol-ized, pedal to the metal choruses – and by that, I mean, really, the one chorus that seems to the be the template for all of them – and by the overall lack of anything that smacks of originality or art or madness or passion, those are the times that I like to reach for an album like Pete Townshend’s All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes.

Just to remind me what’s possible.

When I first heard this record in 1982, I was still in my teens, and it sounded like adulthood to me. Granted, it was a mixed-up, dramatic, emotionally fraught adulthood, but I remember feeling excited about the way Townshend described love and relationships. It sounded mature and rich and complicated. I still feel that way.

Take this chorus from “The Sea Refuses No River” –

For the sea refuses no river
We’re polluted now but in our hearts still clean
The sea refuses no river
We tried not to age
But time had its rage
We’re washed over stones
From babes into clones of the mean
The sea won’t refuse this muddy river
Nor deny the sulphurous stream

Wow, right? Paired with a yearning melody that sounds torn right from the center Townshend’s heart, this chorus alone is pretty much better than everything I’ve heard in the past three years. Or longer. It’s just so honest and personal and full of detail. It sums up decades in a very short space.

As a lyricist, Townshend’s not afraid to use his vocabulary, which I love. It’s not an easy thing to do as a songwriter. But when he sings a line like “I just sit enraptured by your fluttering eyelids,” it sounds natural and convincing and totally great. It’s part of what gives him style, what makes you instantly recognize a Pete Townshend song.

I wonder if anyone is even interested in this kind of thing anymore. Listeners or songwriters. It almost seems like a strand of rock evolution that never developed any further, a glimpse of how rock stars could age, not only gracefully, but with heart and intelligence. Certainly, other writers have matured and made great albums. Springsteen, Dylan, Petty, etc. But so often there seems to be something missing – great lyrics that lack an equally great melody. Or the performance or the production doesn’t measure up to their best work. Chinese Eyes has it all. Granted, Pete wasn’t even forty years old when he made it, but then, he always seemed beyond his years. At 37, he’d lived a few lifetimes and was one of the first rock stars from the 60s to break down the wall of mystique and sing about his life in an honest, and not always flattering, way.

This album is certainly not remembered as one of Pete’s finest moments. It’s not on any Top 100 lists. Maybe it’s not as epic as Tommy or Quadrophenia, but I find myself returning to it more than any Who album.

I’m not even going to say the obvious thing about how they don’t make ‘em like this anymore. I’m just going to put the CD on again and be happy that it exists. Thanks, Pete.