10 Perfect Songs That Were Written Incredibly Fast

From the first moments that Pete Townshend starting writing Tommy, he was never envisioning the single power that the songs had. This was a rock opera that was supposed to be taken in as a whole, and making some promotional material for the record would just disrupt the flow of the story he was trying to tell. He had to stick to his guns, but he got read the riot act when the press told him that he didn't have a song to tie the whole concept together.

As Townshend went out to play his masterpiece to some of his critic friends, one of them had mentioned that there were a few plot holes in his narrative, along with not having a kind of blockbuster song that really said it all for the record. Noticing the amount of pinball machines that his friend had around the house, Townshend proceeded to write Tommy as a pinball champion, with this song being the moment in the story where everyone starts to discover the wonder behind this deaf dumb and blind kid.

The single may have done exactly what it was supposed to do, but Townshend was never quite happy with it either, originally thinking that it just disrupted the entire story and put a novelty factor into a story that is a lot more harrowing than just your traditional rock and roll song. You have to make compromises in this industry though, and sometimes that means having to water down some things before finalizing your grand vision.