Song of the Day 10/24: The Who, “You Better You Bet”

The betting scandal involving a National Basketball Association player is about as surprising as the location of this morning’s sunrise, and most people have been quick to blame it on the cozy relationship between pro sports and legalized gambling. The problem with that conclusion: Gambling, legal or not, has always been a part of sports. (Also, too: The poker game was illegal, crooked or not.)

There was betting on the Olympics in ancient Greece, and on chariot racing in ancient Rome and Egypt. Horse racing began in America on Long Island in 1665, and gambling right along with it. As long as people have been gambling on games of skill, so has the temptation to rig the games to turn a risk into a sure thing. All legalized gambling has done is made it easier for more suckers to get fleeced.

Pete Townsend wasn’t talking about that kind of betting when he wrote “You Better You Bet.” He was writing a love song for a woman he was dating during what he described as a “lean period in my marriage,” which was probably related to his heavy use of cocaine at the time.

The song was the lead single from 1981’s “Face Dances,” their first album with Kenney Jones replacing the late Keith Moon. It was the last song by the Who to make either Billboard’s top 20 (No. 18) or the UK’s top 10 (No. 9). For context on how long ago that was, this video was among the first ever shown on MTV, and the very first the channel showed more than once.