Pete Townshend's first solo album was a homespun, charming forum for low-key, personal songs that weren't deemed suitable for
the Who, as well as spiritual paeans (direct and indirect) to his spiritual guru, Meher Baba.
Who fans will be immediately attracted by the presence of a couple of songs from the aborted
Who concept album Lifehouse (much of which ended up on
Who's Next), "Pure & Easy" and "Let's See Action."
The Who did eventually release their own versions of both those songs. But
Townshend's own versions aren't the highlights of this record, which shows a folkier and gentler side to
the Who's chief muse than his albums with the group. "Sheraton Gibson" is a neat tune about rock & roll road life, and "Time Is Passing" takes very subtle inspiration from Baba. Most of the rest of the album contains some of the most unusual pieces
Townshend has released: his acoustic cover of
Jim Reeves' "There's a Heartache Following Me" (recorded because it was one of Baba's favorite tunes), "Evolution" (which is actually pretty much a solo track by his buddy
Ronnie Lane of
the Faces), "Parvardigar" (adapted from Baba's Universal Prayer), and "Content" (a philosophical poem by Maud Kennedy that
Townshend put to music). The 1993 reissue of this LP for compact disc fleshes out the program considerably with six previously unreleased tracks, including
Townshend's demo of the
Who single "The Seeker." The other bonus cuts are by no means filler; meditative and melancholy originals, they're just as strong as the tracks on the original release. ~ Richie Unterberger