empty glass (1980) – pete townshend: atco records, SD-32-100

When Keith Moon died in the second half of 1978, the surviving members of The Who proclaimed they wanted to continue to soldier on with the band, but one has to imagine that it would have been just incredibly difficult for them to really muster the enthusiasm to do so.  Particularly in the few months immediately following - I mean, most people have a hard time getting their peckers up to go in to work after their favorite team loses a game on the weekend.  So despite their intention, the prospect of carrying on performing in a band in which one of the founding members – a close friend and guy with whom they spent many intimate years – recently died unexpectedly and under some heartbreaking circumstances must have been almost impossible for the remaining three.

So, it isn’t too hard to conclude that as a way of coping with this, and other significant events in his life at the time (such as alleged trouble with his marriage and substance abuse), Pete Townshend sought therapy through art, and immersed himself in working on a solo project.  After all, proximity to Entwistle and Daltrey would likely have been just too emotionally jarring.

Of course, while Townshend had released work separate from The Who in the past, they were either merely a collection of Who demo songs (Who Came First), or collaborative efforts of the more spiritual nature.  But Empty Glass was 100% solo Pete.

Side 1: Rough Boys I Am An Animal And I Moved Let My Love Open The Door Jools And Jim
Side 2: Keep On Working Cat’s In The Cupboard A Little Is Enough Empty Glass Gonna Get Ya

 
The first thing I noticed on the re-listen to this album was the first thing I noticed on my very first listen some 30-some years ago: that it sounds exactly like a Who album in terms of musical arrangement, instrumentation, and lyrical content.  And I am not alone.  In fact, Empty Glass was released around the same time as the The Who released Face Dances (their first post-Moon album), and in the eyes of many critics and fans, Empty Glass was the better Who album, even though it was Who-less.  If nothing else, this certainly did confirm the suspicion that, while the Who were definitely a collaborative effort, Townshend was more collaborative than the others.

The next thing I noticed on the re-listen is something that more or less escaped me when I first got this, and that is there is a lot of stuff going on in these songs.  A lot of stuff.  That’s not surprising since having one of your best friends suddenly die at 32, dealing with serious marital problems, juggling a drug and alcohol problem, and basically entering a mid-life crisis is more than enough to put the zap on anyone’s head.  But when you’re an introspective and creative dude like Townshend, who had a tumultuous childhood and was searching for some sort of spiritual meaning, that zap takes on the qualities of a bolt flung by a very pissed off Zeus.

Some of the issues covered in this album? Well, clearly spirituality is one.  I mean, aside from that giant halo around Pete’s head on the cover making this look like some iconography from ancient Byzantium, the lyrics to Let My Love Open The Door contains some pretty religious-sounding bits like:

Let my love open the door / It's all I'm living for
Release yourself from misery / There's only one thing gonna set you free

While A Little Is Enough throws a heaping pile of christian ritual and dogma in your face.

Pete also tackles sexuality with Rough Boys; Jools and Jim tries to cope with anger at a couple of NME writers and their crass reaction to Moon’s passing; and Empty Glass is an unequivocal song about drowning your sorrows and the miserable state of an incurable drunk.

All in all it’s just way easier to focus on Townshend’s patented ability to write great riffs and hooks and enjoy the music on this album, because paying even the slightest attention to the heavy lyrics can seriously fuck with your head.

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