Who is the pinball wizard

• The Pinball Wizard : Ever since I was a young boy, I've played the silver ball. From SoHo down to Brighton, I must have played them all. But I ain't seen nothin' like him In any amusement hall. That deaf, dumb and blind kid Sure plays a mean pinball.

Pete Townshend (The Who) “Pinball Wizard” Tommy (1969)

Featured on the 1969 rock opera album Tommy, "Pinball Wizard"'s iconic acoustic introduction was inspired by a master. According to legend (and the gurus at wikipedia):

In late 1968 or early 1969, when the Who played a rough assembly of their new album to critic Nik Cohn, Cohn gave a lukewarm reaction.

Following this, Townshend, as Tommy's principal composer, discussed the album with Cohn and concluded that, to lighten the load of the rock opera's heavy spiritual overtones (Townshend had recently become deeply interested in the teachings of Meher Baba), the title character, a "deaf, dumb and blind" boy, should also be particularly good at a certain game. Knowing Cohn was an avid pinball fan, Townshend suggested that Tommy would play pinball. The song "Pinball Wizard" was written and recorded almost immediately.

Townshend shares, “The chordal structure for the intro was inspired by [English Baroque composer] Henry Purcell, who did this very short piece called ‘Symphony Upon One Note.’

"It’s a very plaintive piece, almost like the [20th-century U.S. composer] Samuel Barber composition ‘Adagio for Strings’—only the Purcell piece was written in 1600 or something. A single bowed note runs throughout that whole piece. I found that a stunning thing to call upon while I was in the process of writing ‘Pinball Wizard.’

"I analyzed every single chord in the piece and found ways to play them on guitar.”

Here's the Who performing "Pinball Wizard" live in Atlanta in 1989.

From the GW archive: Portions of this story originally appeared in the February/March 2005 issue of Guitar World Acoustic.

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Elton John 'Pinball Wizard' artwork - Courtesy: UMG

Some rock standards should never be remade, but others lend themselves brilliantly to another distinctive treatment. So it was when Elton John was persuaded by director Ken Russell, after his initial refusal, to play the role of the Pinball Wizard in the 1975 film adaptation of Pete Townshend’s Tommy.

Elton duly set about recording his take on Townshend’s “Pinball Wizard,” calling on his usual team of producer Gus Dudgeon and his band featuring Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, Ray Cooper and Nigel Olsson. After a choral introduction, Elton put his unmistakable piano style in place of Pete’s original lead acoustic guitar lines, while Johnstone contributed strident lead guitar.

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Creating a classic cover in four hours

Townshend vividly described the recording session for the cover in his Who I Am autobiography. “Elton arrived at the Battersea studio in a Phantom 5 limousine,” he wrote, “similar to the one used by the Queen; I hadn’t seen one in the rock world since Andrew Oldham’s in 1967. It was a revelation to observe how quickly and efficiently Elton and his band worked, nailing a driving track with solos, lead and backing vocals in less than four hours.”

Listen to the best of Elton John on Apple Music and Spotify.

The cover of “Pinball Wizard” was only ever a promotional release for the film in America, but in the UK it became a single, entering the chart on March 20, 1976 at No.36. It climbed to No.21 and then to its No.7 peak, sitting next to The Beatles’ exalted ballad “Yesterday,” which was enjoying success as a UK single release for the first time.

In hitting the Top 10, Elton’s cover achieved what his own three previous singles written with Bernie Taupin (“Philadelphia Freedom,” “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” and “Island Girl”) had all failed to do. In fact, it was his first UK Top 10 appearance since another cover, of The Beatles’ “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” hit No.10 just before Christmas 1974.

Buy or stream Elton John’s “Pinball Wizard” on the 3CD deluxe edition of Diamonds.

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‘Pinball Wizard’ is one of those songs that has such a disparate seeming story, devoid of the usual rock ‘n’ roll tropes and trappings, that many assume it simply must be allegorical. This is an understandable notion based upon the fact that surely a band couldn’t just write a song about a deaf, dumb and blind pinball kingpin without it having some underlying ties to society at large.

In truth, the message behind The Who’s rock opera Tommy was heavily based on the teachings of Indian spiritualist Meher Baba (1894-1969). The concept of Tommy, therefore, closely mirrors Meher Baba’s idea of awakening to a higher realm.

Meher Baba’s message was that the goal of life was to realise the absolute oneness of God, a presence from whom the universe emanates as an unconscious whim, materialised into conscious divinity. In turn, to reflect his own teachings, Meher Baba lived in silence for the final 44 years of his life. The muteness of Tommy as a character reflects this.

As Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone back in 1969 upon its release, “Tommy’s real self represents the aim – God – and the illusory self is the teacher; life, the way, the path and all this. The coming together of these are what make him aware. They make him see and hear and speak so he becomes a saint who everybody flocks to.” The offshoot of this was that Tommy as, a character, experienced the world through the vibrations of a pinball machine, which would figuratively be reflected in the vibrations of music. 

As far as a creative impetus for rock music goes, that is about as nebulous as it gets. However, what singled Pete Townshend out as a unique creative force is that such a spiritual and deep synopsis could be transmuted into something so fun and palatable. As a songwriter, Townshend may well have had both feet planted firmly in the realm of spiritualism, but he was still peaking over into the mainstream and never lost sight of what makes a hit. ‘Pinball Wizard’ is the perfect example of his dichotomous, head in the clouds yet finger to pulse approach.

The story goes that in late 1968 – or early 1969 – when The Who played a preview of their new album in the presence of legendary critic Nik Cohn, and his reaction to the performance was middling. Afterwards, Townshend discussed the record with Cohn and took his remarks regarding the overbearing fidelity to subtext onboard. Townshend decided that the deaf, dumb and blind protagonist should also excel in a certain area and with Cohn being a pinball fanatic, that area of expertise presented itself quite readily. 

Almost immediately after this conversation with Cohn, ‘Pinball Wizard’ was written and written. The track microwaved Cohn’s lukewarm first thoughts and resulted in a glowing hot review. 

The track itself is built around an old Symphonic piece that Townshend discover around the time of recording, as he told Guitar World back in 2005: “The chordal structure for the intro was inspired by [English Baroque composer] Henry Purcell, who did this very short piece called ‘Symphony Upon One Note.'”

“It’s a very plaintive piece, almost like the [20th-century U.S. composer] Samuel Barber composition ‘Adagio for Strings’,” Townshend explained, adding: “Only the Purcell piece was written in 1600 or something. A single bowed note runs throughout that whole piece.

“I found that a stunning thing to call upon while I was in the process of writing ‘Pinball Wizard.’ I analysed every single chord,” Townshend concludes, “and found ways to play them on guitar.”

The track itself would go on to be a hit, which played a pivotal part in the 1975 movie based on the album, Tommy, starring Jack Nicholson, Ann Margaret, Tina Turner, and Roger Daltrey himself (who played Tommy). In the movie, Elton John makes an appearance as The Pinball Wizard and performed this song with his hit version peaking at number seven in the UK charts.

However, in a fated sort of way, the song seemed to reach its spiritual home as the band played it at Woodstock in 1969, just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, leaving the crowd mute in awestruck wonder.

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