THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,912) The Who — “Naked Eye“
Man, do Who disciples (quite justifiably) LOVE this “menacing and angst-filled” (willyboy2, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/additional/the-who/odds-and-sods/reviews/4/) “nugget[] of Who-ness” (Reginod, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/additional/the-who/odds-and-sods/reviews/4/), which never made it onto a record until ’74’s Odds and Sods collection. “Bought this LP in the cut out bins and it was one of the most revelatory records to my 1970s teenage mind, and this song especially. Thanks Woolworths!” (colleenmorgan1590, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooygukKGY90) And the Who’s rendition at the ’70 Isle of Wight Festival? “[W]ithout question, the greatest rock performance ever”! (navynugget7, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AIU-EHSnCc) “I dont know what it is, but somehow those 3 chords Pete plays from 2:10 to 3:10 contain the meaning of life.” (animalstudios619, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AIU-EHSnCc)
Oh, and in one of the greatest YouTube comments ever, Davo2003hd reminisces:
In 1979, I bought Odds and Sods from a cut-out bin for .99 cents. Best buck I ever spent. . . . I had an English class the next hour, and a Sonnet poetry assignment was due that next hour. Of course, I had not done it. Playing “Naked Eye” and reading the lyrics, I realized this would make a great poem. I rearranged it to fit the needed structure and turned it in. The next day, the teacher announced she was disappointed with our sonnets. Only one student understood the assignment and turned in a great poem. She read it out loud. I thought I was busted!!! Nobody ever knew!! I got an A+. I still have the poem and the .99c vinyl. I’ve loved this song for 45 years.
The liner notes to Odds and Sods tell us:
Produced by Pete Townshend at Eel Pie Studios, London late May 1970 (some sources claim this version was produced by Glyn Johns at Olympic Studios, Barnes May 1971). Pete Townshend: “Another track from the EP [What EP?]. This number was written around a riff that we often played on stage at the end of our act around the time we were touring early TOMMY.[“] . . . The melody . . . first appeared during end-of-show improvisations during the May/June 1969 North American tour (it can be heard in the final moments of “My Generation” at Woodstock). The version with lyrics was not incorporated into the live set until after it was recorded . . . .
https://web.archive.org/web/20070701183016/http://www.thewho.net/linernotes/Odds%26Sods.htm
Will Howard adds:
If you give a close listen to the versions of “Magic Bus” and “My Generation” on Live At Leeds and Live at the Isle Of Wight Festival 1970, you’ll find an absolute cornucopia of riffs, hooks and tossed-away little phrases that most bands would kill for. You’ll also find living proof that at his prime, Townshend was every bit the shredder that Page, Clapton and Gilmour were; he just preferred riffing away instead. One of these riffs, a chiming, descending pattern in F that sees singer Roger Daltrey give it his best Robert Plant howl over the top, might sound a little familiar to true The Who die-hards. This is because the chord sequence never left Pete Townshend’s consciousness, and he spent the next couple of years turning it into “Naked Eye”, a song earmarked for a potential single release. . . . He said the song “came to be one of our best stage numbers, this was never released because we always hoped we would get a good live version one day. But then we’re such a lousy live group…” Hell of a way to discover that Pete Townshend actually does have a sense of humour, right?
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/naked-eye-the-who-hit-that-never-was/
Here it is at the Isle of Wight:
Here it is in London (’71):
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