Pete Townshend's overlooked classic

"Give Blood" off his "White City" album is one of his finest - but who knows it?

EDITOR’S NOTE: As I know not all my readers are interested in Florida State baseball, here’s a bonus post for you. As Groucho once said, “bring your dog around and I’ll give him a bonus, too.” Yuk!

When the name Pete Townshend comes up, you almost automatically think “Tommy” or maybe “Quadrophrenia” or certainly “Who’s Next.”

Chances are, unless you’re a die-hard, you don’t think of “Give Blood,” a song off his oft-forgotten “White City” album. But it’s one of those songs that I think holds up on repeating listening and is another example of how sometimes our brains let us do something that we couldn’t possibly have achieved if we sat down and tried to do it.

If I can use a recent example, when I wrote a Substack on Paul Westerberg, shortly after his 65th birthday, my intent was to say, “Gee, Paul, you wrote so many great songs. I miss hearing some new ones.” It wasn’t intended as anything more than a “Hey, thanks for a lot of great stuff. Love to hear more.” And the post, which originated on January 10, now has over 9,000 views. Three more yesterday. So it must have connected in a way I couldn’t have imagined.

Townshend is surely one of rock’s finest songwriters and is one of its greatest talkers, too. There are times in his lyrics, he gets a little tangled and defeats his own purpose. But here, with apparently simple phrases, “Give blood. And there are those who’ll say it’s not enough” he ends up with what I think is a compelling, universal statement, as stirring as it is profound. And he wasn’t even trying, which might be the point.

The Who's Pete Townshend's "White City" and "Give Blood" are often overlooked

As Townshend explained it on the liner notes to a greatest hits package: “Give Blood” was one of the tracks I didn't even play on. I brought in Simon Phillips, Pino Palladino and David Gilmour simply because I wanted to see my three favorite musicians of the time playing on something and, in fact, I didn't have a song for them to work on, and sat down very, very quickly and rifled through a box of stuff, said to Dave, "Do one of those kind of ricky-ticky-ricky-ticky things, and I'll shout 'Give Blood!' in the microphone every five minutes and let's see what happens." And that's what happened. Then I constructed the song around what they did."

Now, I’m not a songwriter so pardon this semi-technical explanation but it seems to be that like his classics “Baba O’Riley” or “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” when Townshend has some musical soundscape base like a synthesizer melody running in the background, giving him a sort of musical foundation to respond to, it seems to free him up to compose verses that, well, for lack of a more precise word, just soar. Which I think “Give Blood” does.

As explained in Al Melchior’s article in “American Songwriter,” “At first glance, the message of “Give Blood” seems simple and straightforward. After a grand and energetic instrumental introduction, the song’s lyrics begin with a verse about the thanklessness of shedding one’s own blood, ostensibly on behalf of a patriotic cause.

Give blood
But you may find that blood is not enough
Give blood
And there are some who’ll say it’s not enough
Give blood
But don’t expect to ever see reward
Give blood
You can give it all but still you’re asked for more.”

That certainly would apply to the situation in Ukraine, for one thing, and sadly, you could probably apply Townshend’s lyric to many situations in our violent world today. As he gets to the chorus, “Give love and keep blood between brothers” the anti-war, anti-hatred message rings true, something that Townshend might not have even considered or even knew he felt as he started to write the song, as he explains, somewhat haphazardly, in the studio.

In a film about the White City project, Townshend goes further, explaining that he— and those raised in England after the war — were “brainwashed” to believe that “success was tied up with the pursuit of heroism.” These days, trying to be a “hero” is a dangerous thing. To most of the rest of the world, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been heroic in his stance against Russian aggression, invading his country.

But he was certainly not treated like a hero by our President and Vice President during a recent White House visit. Townshend’s pitch, “give love and keep blood between brothers” seems way too idealistic, sadly, for our world today. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for that, does it?

Idealism seems a lost cause now. Back in 1985, Townshend likely wasn’t thinking about an anti-war, anti-violence sentiment when he walked into the recording studio that day. But it just came out in the same way, perhaps it did for U2 with a song called “One” that Bono attests, may well have kept the band together in 1990.

They were in Berlin’s Hansa Studios and couldn’t seem to get anywhere with anything and feared they might be done as a band. Then the song “One” arrived, as if a gift from above and everything changed. Then Bono composed that absolutely killer last verse which shares so much with Townshend’s.

One love, one blood
One life, you got to do what you should
One life, with each other
Sisters, brothers

One life but we're not the same
We get to carry each other, carry each other
One
The way things are in our country these days, it seems the last thing anybody is thinking about is carrying each other or that each of us are flanked by our brothers and sisters, whatever their color or personal orientation.

Though it was a while ago, both Pete Townshend and Bono, whether absently or intentionally, were thinking about those things and decided to share them with us. I, for one, am very glad they did. Especially now.