Song of the Day 3/15: The Who, “Pictures of Lily”

I’ve been talking a lot about power pop recently, mainly because it seems Jason330 is a fan of the genre even if he didn’t realize what it was called. So let’s look into the history of the only genre of rock and roll that shunned being cool in favor of commercial appeal, only to be spurned by the masses.

Nobody can agree on what the first power pop song was. History does, however, identify the first song whose composer employed the term — The Who’s Pete Townshend, who used it to characterize this ode to masturbation.

The term didn’t catch on for several years, and by the time it did it was being used to describe bands like the Raspberries and Badfinger, both of which were often written off as Beatles imitators. The key ingredients were catchy hooks, tight harmonies and either crunchy or jangly guitars, usually with bright melodies undercut by yearning lyrics. “Pictures of Lily” fits the description perfectly, even if the genre didn’t exist yet.

The video shows The Who at their most subdued, but we do get some good Keith Moon mugging for the camera (are those lace cuffs long enough?) and John Entwistle demonstrating his infrequently-tapped ability on the French horn. The song reached the top 5 in the UK, but couldn’t crack the top 50 in the US.