The Who Releasing Two Previously Lost 1960s Songs

William Lee | 11-22-2019

The Who have released a brand new track entitled "I Don't Wanna Get Wise" and revealed plans to release two 1960s era songs. The song comes from the band's forthcoming album "Who," which is set to hit stores on December 6th.

Guitarist Pete Townshend had this to say about the song, 'I wrote this in a mid-'70s style, like a song from an album like 'Who By Numbers'. Warning: don't get old. You might get wise'. Stream it here.

The band has also shared the details about the bonus material that will be include on the deluxe version of the album. They will include two previously thought 'lost' tracks from the 1960's called 'Got Nothing To Prove" and 'Sand'.

Pete Townshend had this to say, "Both these songs are from the Summer of 1966; they would not have been rejected by the band members but rather by my then creative mentor, Who manager Kit Lambert. In 1967, when the song seemed destined for the bottom drawer, I did offer 'Got Nothing To Prove' to Jimmy James and the Vagabonds who used to support us at The Marquee in 1965.

"I remember playing him the demo at my house in Twickenham. They were still managed by Peter Meaden who had been so influential on me in particular in the short period he was our PR man in late 1964. Jimmy liked the song, and suggested making it more R&B, in a slower tempo, but nothing happened. I have a feeling Kit may have felt the song sounded as though it was sung by an older and more self-satisfied man than I was in real life.

"That would have applied to Roger too I suppose. Now, it works. Back then, perhaps it didn't. Dave Sardy and I decided to ask George Fenton to do a Swinging Sixties band arrangement to make the song more interesting, but also to place it firmly in an Austin Powers fantasy. I love it".

Pete said of the other track, "'Sand' came from the same period. This is a simple idea, about a sunny beach vacation romance that doesn't last once the lovers get back home to the rain. Again, Kit passed on this, even as an album track, and it simply got filed away. I have always loved it, but have been waiting for computers to get smart enough to fix some of the tape stretch problems that had affected the demo.

I also revived this in my home studio by doing roughly what I felt the Who would have done had this ever been recorded by them. So there is added backing vocals, Rickenbacker, and acoustic 12 string, and a feedback section to properly evoke the era.

"These probably really belong on one of my Scoop albums, but I did present them to our A&R man Richard O'Donovan who felt, and I agree, that these two tracks remind new Who fans of the lo-fi method that all Who songs came from in the early years, and the sheer joy I experienced of being a One-Man band in my home studio, long before such things were common. This is Who history after all, and it doesn't all belong to Obsessive Collectors."