Reply #62: After Tommy

[Squeech]

Pete Townshend was working on another large-scale work called Lifehouse. The Who's management told Pete he couldn't do it, that it would take too long and cost too much to record it and stage it the way Pete wanted to. They convinced him to just record the best songs he had ready as the next album, and that became Who's Next. "Behind Blue Eyes" is a soliloquy/apology by the bad guy in Lifehouse, claiming he's just misunderstood, and that he really doesn't want to be the bad guy: "When my fist clenches, crack it open / before I use it and lose my cool."

On edit: and actually there's much worse in Tommy: "Cousin Kevin," "The Acid Queen," "Fiddle About," "Sally Simpson"...