A Quick One is the second studio album by the English rock band the Who, released on 9 December 1966. In the United States, where the song "Happy Jack" was a top 40 hit, the album was released in April 1967 under the title Happy Jack with a slightly altered track listing.
Unlike other albums by the Who, where guitarist Pete Townshend was the primary or sole songwriter, A Quick One features significant songwriting contributions from all band members, with lead vocalist Roger Daltrey contributing one song, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon each contributing two. The album also included a cover of the Holland–Dozier–Holland song "Heat Wave" and ends with a musical suite titled "A Quick One, While He's Away", which served as an inspiration for later rock operas that the Who would become known for.
Composition and production
The Who's second studio album departs from the R&B emphasis of their debut. Part of the marketing push for the album was a requirement that each band member should write at least two of the songs on it, though Roger Daltrey only wrote one ("See My Way"), so this is the Who album least dominated by Pete Townshend's songwriting. It was recorded at IBC Studios, Pye Studios, and Regent Sound in London in 1966 by record producer Kit Lambert. Townshend said that this push for equal contribution led to the exclusion of the band's singles that he had written.[2]
"Boris the Spider" was written after John Entwistle had been out drinking with the Rolling Stones' bassist Bill Wyman. They were making up funny names for animals when Entwistle came up with the song. "Boris the Spider" quickly became Entwistle's most popular song, still performed decades later: in later years he often wore a spider necklace, and would have a spider web design inlaid on the body of his custom-made Alembic bass guitar (the latter is pictured on the cover of Entwistle's 1981 solo studio album Too Late the Hero).
Keith Moon's "I Need You" was originally titled "I Need You (Like I Need a Hole in the Head)". Moon thought the Beatles spoke in a secret language behind his back, and this song was his way of making fun of their northern accents. Although Moon denied that a vocal part in the song was a John Lennon imitation, Entwistle said that, in fact, it was.[3]
John Entwistle would later cite "Whiskey Man" as the first song he ever wrote. It tells the story of a drunkard whose best friend is a man he sees only after drinking heavily. The drunkard is eventually locked in padded room in a sanitarium, and he laments not being able to share the room with Whiskey Man or even call him. In the first line of the song, Entwistle accidentally sings the word "friend" as "fwend"; not wanting to record an entirely new take, he instead opted to double-track the vocal and sing "flend" as a quick fix.
"Heat Wave", the only cover track and the only nod to the group's soul influences on the album, was originally written by Tamla's Holland–Dozier–Holland team and performed by Martha and the Vandellas. It was replaced by "Happy Jack" on the original US release but later included on the 1974 double album repackaging of A Quick One and The Who Sell Out (1967).
"Cobwebs and Strange" was originally called "Showbiz Sonata". Entwistle claimed that the melody came from the 1960 UK television series Man from Interpol[3] (1960), actually the instrumental was written for this series by Tony Crombie who released it under its original title "Eastern journey".[4] Each band member played a wind instrument on the track: Townshend played the penny-whistle, Entwistle the trumpet and French horn, Daltrey the trombone, and Moon the tuba.[5] They recorded the winds while marching around the studio.
"See My Way", Roger Daltrey's only writing contribution to the album, is a pastiche of Buddy Holly compositions. In order to achieve a deadened tom-tom sound like that of Crickets drummer Jerry Allison's distinctive paradiddles on "Peggy Sue", towels were placed on Moon's drum kit. When this resulted in a sound that did not satisfy the band, Moon instead played the tom fills on cardboard boxes.
"A Quick One, While He's Away" is a nine-minute suite of song snippets telling a story of infidelity and reconciliation, the first foray into an extended form that led to the rock operasTommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973). Green Day has recorded a cover version of this song.
Cover art
The cover was designed by the pop art exponent Alan Aldridge,[7] with the front cover depicting the band playing their instruments, as the titles of some songs from the album come out of the instruments in the form of onomatopoeiae: "Cobwebs and Strange" for Moon (top left), "Whiskey Man" for Entwistle (bottom left), "See My Way" for Daltrey (top right), and "A Quick One, While He's Away" for Townshend (bottom right). The back cover of the UK release is black, with the title and track listing across the top, and a colour head-shot photograph of each band member with the letters of "The W H O" superimposed individually over their faces.[8] The back cover of the US release is a black-and-white photo montage of the band members accompanied by a short personality sketch of each (notorious among Who fans for Keith Moon's humorous assertion that he was keen on "breeding chickens"). A track listing, a couple of paragraphs touting the band, an advertisement for their debut studio album, and a technical blurb are also crowded onto the back cover of the US release.[citation needed]
Rolling Stone's Steve Appleford said in 1995 that the album's cheerful pop style has an authentic quality with trifles like "Cobwebs and Strange" that are reconciled by "absolutely perfect, poignant pop tune[s]" such as "So Sad About Us".[13] The album was later described as "fascinatingly quirky" by the magazine.[15]
In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau included the album's American version in his "basic record library".[16]Rolling Stone ranked the album number 383 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, published in 2003,[17] and 384 in 2012.[18]
Roger Daltrey – lead vocals, trombone on "Cobwebs and Strange"
Pete Townshend – guitar, backing vocals, co-lead vocals on "A Quick One, While He's Away", tin whistle on "Cobwebs and Strange"
John Entwistle – bass, backing vocals, lead vocals on "Boris the Spider" and "Whiskey Man", co-lead vocals on "A Quick One, While He's Away", French horn and trumpet on "Cobwebs and Strange"
Keith Moon – drums, backing vocals, lead vocals on "I Need You", tuba on "Cobwebs and Strange"
